
Book- I 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



THE 

Will of God 



AND A MAN'S 



LIFEWORK 



Henry B. Wright 



"Christ is ... . the true, the living way of access to God. Give 
up yourselves therefore to him with a cordial confidence and 
the great work of life is done." 

Timothy Dwight, Baccalaureate Sermon, at Yale in 1814. 



New York 

The Young Men's Christian Association Press 

1909 



X 



*6 



d\ 




Copyright, 1909, 

The International Committee of Young Men's 

Christian Associations, 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027740 



'CI. A 251838 



To 
MY FATHER and MY MOTHER 



PREFACE 

These studies were originally prepared by laymen to meet 
the needs of students in the Association Bible Classes for 
Seniors of the Academic and Scientific Departments of Yale 
University. It was hoped that they might prove helpful in 
giving to young men about to enter upon their life work in 
many different professions a conception of the highest ideals 
which these careers could embrace. 

Largely as a result of the failure to distinguish clearly 
between the decision to do God's will and the act of volunteer- 
ing there exists among many college students today an erron- 
eous impression that the doing of God's will is synonymous 
solely with the Clerical and Missionary careers. The call of 
God is popularly interpreted as a call to the Professional 
Ministry; Law, Business, Teaching, Medicine, Engineering 
and like professions are distinguished as secular. They are 
regarded as fields into which man may enter without relation 
to God's will — realms in which more latitude is allowed to the 
individual in personal morals and in manner of life, and within 
which he is largely released from responsibility for the ad- 
vancement of the Kingdom of God. 

Jesus Christ and his Apostles, however, entertained no 
such conception of the so-called "secular" professions. Our 
Lord and his followers were themselves laymen, not members 
of the professional clergy of the day. To them all honorable 
careers were ministries and service in these so-called "secular" 
careers seemed to them to demand not less, but more, consecra- 
tion to God than the organized church required of its leaders. 

This great truth, which more than any other was the 
secret of the mighty advances of Christianity in the first 
centuries, has been long obscured; but during the last decade 
more than at any other time it has been rediscovered and 
applied in America and the result has been a great leavening 
and purification of our public and private life. Professor 



vi PREFACE 

Peabody's "Jesus Christ and the Social Question" and Pro- 
fessor Jenks' "Studies in the Political and Social Significance 
of the Life and Teaching of Jesus" — the method of which 
has been largely followed in these outlines — are noteworthy 
in this regard. Other studies which are to follow on the 
significance of the teaching of Jesus and his Apostles to the 
Physician, to the Teacher, to the Lawyer, as well as a course 
on the scientific significance of Jesus' teaching, will do much 
to spread and apply the great and vital truth still further. 

The present outlines are a modest attempt to give a 
basis in experience for all such practical and more general 
applications of Christianity to modern life. They do not, for 
an instant, seek to discredit the preaching ministry at home or 
abroad to which all other careers must ever look for higher 
leadership and inspiration. But they do insist and strive to 
demonstrate that this career is not the only field of human ac- 
tivity in which God's will may be done fully and completely. 
Every young man in America today ought undoubtedly to sub- 
scribe to the declaration, "I will be a clergyman at home or 
abroad if God so directs/' But just as surely should he at the 
same time subscribe to the declaration, "I will be a doctor, 
lawyer, business man, teacher, or what not, at home or abroad, 
if God so directs/' The first declaration alone is not absolute 
but partial surrender to God's will. Only the two together 
comprise unconditional enlistment in God's service. 

To make clear the great fact of God's will and its 
part in human life in a set of studies is no easy task, for 
the underlying truth is one of the most difficult in the world 
of ideas to grasp. Even when clearly apprehended by the indi- 
vidual, it is wellnigh impossible of demonstration by him to 
others as a mere intellectual proposition. It is a truth which 
must be imparted, not taught. Drummond fully realized this 
when he wrote: "The end of life is to do God's will. Now 
that is a great and surprising revelation. No man ever found 
that out. It has been before the world these eighteen hun- 
dred years yet few have even found it out today." If only 
partially apprehended it is capable of the most grotesque 
and dangerous distortion, especially regarding the gifts 



PREFACE vii 

promised as the issues of obedience. There exists, however, 
a wide and for the most part sane literature on the general 
subject and on its particular phases which has never been 
brought together and arranged for daily study. These 
outlines attempt to systematize and render usable to students 
the material already at hand rather than to make any 
original contribution to the subject itself. Hence the copious 
quotations from previous writers. 

To nearly fifty Bible students and Christian workers in 
all parts of the country, who were kind enough to review the 
book before it went to press, in the light of their own experi- 
ence and of the needs of their constituents, and whose sugges- 
tions played a very important part in the final revision, the 
author desires to express his sincere gratitude. The names 
of John G. Magee and Joseph W. Roe would have appeared 
on the title page as joint authors of the studies, had they per- 
mitted it. To the inspiration of their lives and to their many 
suggestions the idea and plan of the book owes much. 

In conclusion, I would that these studies might be privi- 
leged to do a little something toward dissipating a prevalent 
idea that the doing of God's will is synonymous with a narrow, 
difficult and disagreeable life work. He who has willed to 
do God's will completely as it has been revealed in nature 
and humanity, and as it will daily be revealed in the path 
of duty, has for the first time fully found himself. The 
issues of such a life — and of such a life only — are freedom, 
joy and peace. 

Taunton, Mass., July &£, 1909. 



CONTENTS 

A. Introductory 

PAGE 

Study I. 3 

God has a Plan for Every Human Life. 

Study II. 13 

Jesus and the Will of God. 

Study III. .23 

The Apostles and the Will of God. 

Study IV. 31 

The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing God's 
Will a Reasonable One and Fundamental in Other Depart- 
ments of Life. 

B. The Decision to Do God's Will 

Study V. 43 

The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other Reli- 
gious Rites and Spiritual Experiences. 

Study VI. 53 

The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose. 

Study VII. 63 

The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of Sur- 
render of Self. Its Symptoms and its Course. 

Study VIII. 77 

To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is an 
Achievement Possible for Any Man. 

Study IX. 87 

God's Will may be Done in Any Honorable Trade or Pro- 
fession, either at Home or Abroad. 

Study X. 101 

The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self. 

C. The Finding Out of God's Will 

Study XI. 117 

Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition for 
Knowledge of It. 

Study XII. . . 131 

The Universal Will of God for All Men. 



x CONTEXTS 

PAGE 

Study XIII. 141 

The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man. 

Study XIV. 153 

How to Find Out the Particular Will of God. (a) The 

Views of Modern Religious Leaders. 

Study XV. 167 

How to Find Out the Particular Will of God (concluded). 

(b) The Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles. 

Study XVI. 177 

The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity. 

Study XVII. 187 

The Fourfold Touchstone (continued). (b) The Second 
Test— Honesty. 

Study XVIII 197 

The Fourfold Touchstone (continued). (c) The Third 
Test — Unselfishness. 

Study XIX. 207 

The Fourfold Touchstone (concluded). (d) The Fourth 
Test— Love. 

D. The Issues of Facing the Problem of Doing God's Will 

Study XX. 221 

The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience. 

Study XXL 233 

The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge. 

Study XXII 245 

The Issues of Obedience (continued), (b) Protection from 
Harm and Provision for All Needs. 

Study XXIII 955 

The Issues of Obedience (continued), (c) Assurance as to 
One's Duty and Power to Achieve Results. 

Study XXIV 263 

The Issues of Obedience (continued), (d) Constant Com- 
panionship. 

Study XXV 271 

The Issues of Obedience (concluded), (e) Eternal Life. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

(The arrangement is chronological.) 

The Bible. American Revised Version. 

Whenever a number of passages are cited from the New Testament 
in the daily studies they have been arranged in the probable order 
of the historical composition of the books from which they are taken. 
Passages from the Old Testament are generally enclosed in brackets, 
inasmuch as the studies are based on the teaching of Jesus and the 
Apostles. 

Bushnell, Horace. Sermons for the New Life. No. I. — "Every 
Man's Life a Plan of God." 

Robertson, F. W. Sermons. Second Series, No. VII. — "Obedi- 
ence the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." 

Ibsen, H. Brand. 

Macdonald, George. Robert Falconer. 

Mozley. Sermons before the University of Oxford. No. 13. — 
"The True Test of Spiritual Birth." 

Drummond, Henry. The Ideal Life. Last six chapters in the 
book. 

Brooks, Phillips. The Influence of Jesus. I. "On the Moral 
Life of Man." 

Moody, D. L. Secret Power. (Colportage Library, No. 8.) 

MacNeil. The Spirit Filled Life. (Colportage Library, No. 49.) 

Meyer, F. B. The Secret of Guidance. (Colportage Library, No. 
32.) 

James, William. The Will to Believe and other essays in Popu- 
lar Philosophy. 

Murray, Andrew. Absolute Surrender. (Colportage Library, 
No. 54.) 

Smith, G. A. Life of Henry Drummond. Close of Chapter V. 

Murray, Andrew. The School of Obedience. (Colportage 
Library, No. 73.) 

Speer, R. E. "Remember Jesus Christ." No. 4.— "The Rule of 
the Royal Life." 

Starbuck. The Psychology of Religion. 

Coe. The Spiritual Life. 

Royce, J. The World and the Individual. Vol. II., Lectures 
8-10. 

Chapman. The Power of a Surrendered Life. (Colportage 
Library, No. 40.) 

Davidson, A. B. The Called of God. 

James, William. Varieties of Religious Experience. 



xii BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Speer. R. E. The Principles of Jesus. Chapter III. — "Jesus and 
the Will of God." 

Stanton. Article "Will" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. 

Gordon. S. D. Quiet Talks on Power. 

McConkey, James H. The Surrendered Life. (To be obtained 
free from Box 218, Harrisburg, Pa.) 

Peabody, F. G. Jesus Christ and the Christian Character. 
Pages 99-109. 

Richards. God's Choice of Men. 

Oilman, The Open Secret of Nazareth. 

Little. The Lady of the Decoration. 

Gordon, 8. D. Quiet Talks on Personal Problems. 

Speer, R. E. The Marks of a Man. 

Royce, J. The Philosophy of Loyalty. 

Mott, J. R. "Our Religion Primarily a Matter of the Will." 
Record of Christian Work, September, 190S. 

It is assumed that all students have access to Speer's Man Christ 
Jesus and his Principles of Jesus, to both of which frequent reference 
is made. In the daily studies based on these books the pages have 
been purposely left blank in order that the student may copy in an 
outline of the assigned paragraphs. 

Where the Scripture references are numerous the more import- 
ant ones have been specially designated for the benefit of those 
whose time for each day's study is limited. 

In the studies the following order has been taken as the 
probable one for the dates of composition of the books of the New 
Testament. Within the four main groups which may be regarded as 
practically certain the order of the several letters is of course in 
many instances wholly arbitrary. For the general purposes of a his- 
torical study of the development of the teaching regarding God's 
will, however, it is essential that some order be taken and until more 
evidence is at hand the decision between two alternatives must lie 
with the individual investigator. 

I. The Pauline Writings. I Thess., II Thess., Gal., I Cor., 

II Cor., Rom.. Col.,, Eph.,. Philenu Phil., [I Tim., II Tim., Titus.] 

II. The Biographies of Jesus and Paul. Mark, Matt., Luke, 
Acts. 

III. Post Pauline Writings. * [James], Heb., I Peter. 

IV. The Johannine Writings. Rev., John, I John, II John, 

III John. 

V. II Peter, Jude. 



*There seems to be no means of dating the book of James. 



A. INTRODUCTORY 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life. 

Study II. Jesus and the Will of God. 

Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God. 

Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in 
Doing God's Will a Reasonable One and Fundamental in Other 
Departments of Life. 



STUDY I 

God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

"I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me." — Isaiah 45: 5. 

"For who withstandeth his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou 
that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that 
formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or hath not the potter a 
right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel 
unto honor and another unto dishonor?" — Bom. 9: 19-21, 

"Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" 

—Matt. 20:15. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bushnell. The New Life. I.— "Every Man's Life a Plan of 
God." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 5 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

FIRST DAY 

God has a Plan for the Development of the World which Extends to 
all Departments of Life and to all Spheres of Human Activity 

[Isaiah 44 24 ' 28 ; Jer. 18 5 > 6 .] 

I Cor. 12 4 " 6 ' 12 ; II Cor. 10 13 ; Rom. 9 17 (cf. Ex. 9 16 ) ; 
Col. l 16 ;Eph. 2 10 . 

Mark 13 20 > 32 ; Matt. 6 25 " 34 , 10 29 > 30 , 15 13 , 25 34 ; Acts 
1 \ 17 26 . 

~Heb. I 10 " 12 , 3 4 ; Rev. 17 17 . 

"Man advances in the execution of a plan which he has 
not conceived and of which he is not even aware. He is the 
free and intelligent artificer of a work which is not his own. 
.... Conceive a great machine, the design of which is cen- 
tred in a single mind, though its various parts are intrusted 
to different workmen, separated from, and strangers to one an- 
other. No one of them understands the work as a whole, nor 
the general result which he concurs in producing; but every- 
one executes with intelligence and freedom, by rational and 
voluntary acts, the particular task assigned to him." 

Guizot: Lectures on the History of Civilization, XI. 

"We need to know not merely what the essential quali- 
ties of civilization and of our social nature really are; but we 
require to know the general course in which they are tending. 
The more closely we look at it, the more distinctly we see that 
progress moves in a clear and definite path; the development 
of man is not a casual or arbitrary motion ; it moves in a regu- 
lar and consistent plan. Each part is unfolded in due order — 
the whole expanding like a single plant." 

Frederic Harrison: The Meaning of History, page 15. 

"It is my conviction .... that capabilities of a peculiar 
character exist in almost every one and that a man's value to 
society depends to a large extent upon his discovering and 
developing his special talent." 

Gulick : The Efficient Life, page 11. 



6 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

SECOND DAY 

Yet God has Decreed that this Plan shall not Advance without the 
Voluntary and Freely Given Cooperation of Mankind — "We are 
God's Fellow-workers" 

I Cor. 3 6 - 9 ; II Cor. 5 20 , 6 1 ; Rom. 8 28 (marginal note) ; 
Phil. 2 12 ' 13 . 

Mark 6 5 ' 6 , 16 20 ; Matt. 23 3T ; Luke 1 76 , 10 2 ' 3 , 11 3 " 13 , 
18 « 

Heb. 2 6 " 8 , 13 21 ; Rev. 3 20 ; John 5 17 > 36 , 8 16 . 

Just as it is easier for any parent or teacher to do an 
appointed task himself than to guide patiently the stumbling 
efforts of his charges, so we might have expected that God 
would have completed himself the development of the 
kingdom of God on earth. Only infinite love could have 
decreed that this work should wait for every one of its ad- 
vances upon the voluntary cooperation of blind, stubborn, 
whimsical human wills. Yet this is the deeper meaning of 
the Fatherhood of God as revealed on Calvary. There are 
two parts to every advance in human civilization — God's part 
and man's part. God is ever ready with his plan — and the 
complete means for its realization — in establishing the happy 
home, the efficient school, the righteous town or city. Yet 
he never forces or compels this plan. Patiently and un- 
complainingly he waits while the pupil in the school of life 
experiments with his own little stubborn, selfish schemes, 
comforting him without reproach in his failures, until finally 
love, as revealed in the teacher, awakens confidence and desire 
to be led in the child (Rom, 2 *}, 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 7 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

THIRD DAY 

God has a Particular Part for Every Man to Perform in this Plan 

[Isaiah 49 1 ; Jer. 1 5 .] 

Gal. 1 15 > 16 ; I Cor. 1 1T , 7 7 ' 1T , 12 4 f (esp. v. 11) ; Rom. 
9 "• 12 ; Eph. 2 10 , 4 7 > 8 ; Phil. S 12 . 

Mark 13 34 ; Matt. II 10 , 19 xl , 20 1 - 1 ** 2 *, 25 15 ; Luke 

Jg 32, 33^ 

John 15 1G , 17% 18 37 . 

"What now shall we say of man, appearing as it were in 
the center of this great circle of uses? They are all adjusted 
for him ; has he, then, no ends appointed for himself ? Noblest 
of all creatures and closest to God as he certainly is, are we 
to say that his Creator has no definite thoughts concerning 
him, no place prepared for him to fill, no use for him to serve 
which is the reason for his existence? .... 

"God has a definite life-plan for every human person, 
girding him, visibly or invisibly, for some exact thing which it 
will be the true significance and glory of his life to have ac- 
complished And all men may have this: for the 

humblest and commonest have a place and work assigned them 
in the same manner and have it for their privilege to be always 

ennobled in the same lofty consciousness They [the 

Scriptures] show us how frequently, in the conditions of 
obscurity and depression, preparations of counsel are going 
on by which the commonest offices are to become the necessary 
first chapter of a great and powerful history — David among 
the sheep; Elisha following after the plough; Nehemiah 
bearing the cup: Hannah, who can say nothing less common 
than that she is the wife of Elkanah and a woman of sorrowful 
spirit — who that looks on these humble people, at their humble 
post of service, and discovers at last how dear a purpose 
God was cherishing in them, can be justified in thinking that 
God has no particular plan for him, because he is not signal- 
ized by any kind of distinction God is guiding every 



8 THE WILL OF GOD 

man for a place and calling, in which, taking it from him, even 
though it be internally humble, he may be as consciously 
exalted as if he held the rule of a kingdom/ ' 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 10-13. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 9 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

FOURTH DAY 

Man may Find out what his Particular Part is and it is the True Pur- 
pose of his Existence to Discover and Do it 

[II Sam. 7 8 ' 9 ; Psalm 32 8 > 9 ; Jer. 1 4 " 10 .] 
Acts 26 12 " 19 . 

"Every human soul has a complete and perfect plan 
cherished for it in the heart of God — a divine biography 
marked out, which it enters into life to live. This life, rightly 
unfolded, will be a complete and beautiful whole, an experi- 
ence led on by God and unfolded by his secret nurture, as the 
trees and the flowers by the secret nurture of the world, a 
drama, cast in the mould of a perfect art with no part wanting ; 
a divine study for the man himself and for others ; a study that 
shall forever unfold, in wondrous beauty, the love and faith- 
fulness of God; great in its conception, great in the Divine 
skill by which it is shaped; above all, great in the momentous 
and glorious issues it prepares." 

Bushnell: Ibid. 

"God's will concerning foreordination, election, the plan 
of salvation and the problems of eschatology may be stated 
in highly technical and abstract phraseology and is doubtless 
susceptible of many shades of interpretation. God's will 
however as it applies to home life, social intercourse, the 
training of children, the doing of honest work and the 
making of a fair bargain, the care of the poor, the reform 
of the vicious, the encouragement of the unfortunate, the 
casting of the ballot, the administration of office, participation 
in plans for village improvement, cooperation in methods of 
social reform, does indeed require painstaking thought and 
laborious study to discover it; but once clearly apprehended, 
it is not difficult to state it in clear and convincing terms. 
.... Theological education has been disproportionately 
abstract, linguistic and antiquarian. It has taught God's will 
for Israel, rather than for the American Republic." 

William D. Hyde : Forum, June, 1892, page 52£. 



10 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

FIFTH DAY 

Yet God Forces no Man to Accept the Divine Plan for his Life. Man 
may Refuse or Neglect to Find it out, or Having Found it out he 
may Refuse to Perform it and Follow Plans of his own Making 

Rom. 2 4 , 8 20 " 21 ; Col. 4 17 . 

Matt. 19 16 " 22 ; Luke 6 35 (end) ; Acts 14 15 " 17 , 17 2i ' 27 (esp. 

v. 27)7~ 

John 3 20 , 5 » 10 1T ' 1S . 

"God has a life plan for every human life. In the 
eternal counsels of his will, when he arranged the destiny of 
every star and every sand-grain and every grass blade and 
each of those tiny insects which live but for an hour, the 
Creator had a thought for you and me. Our life was to be 
the slow unfolding of this thought, as the cornstalk from 
the corn or the flower from the gradually opening bud. It 
was a thought of what we were to be, of what we might 
become, of what he would have us to do with our days and 
years or influence with our lives. But we all had the terrible 
power to evade this thought and shape our lives from another 
thought, from another will if we chose. The bud could only 
become a flower, and the star revolve in the orbit God had 
fixed. But it was man's prerogative to choose his path, his 
duty to choose it in God. But the divine right to choose at all 
has always seemed more to him than his duty to choose in 
God, so, for the most part, he has taken his life from God and 
cut out his career from himself/' 

Drummoxd: The Ideal Life, page 305. 

Man's opportunity to choose freely is the deeper meaning 
of the temptation of Jesus. Before Jesus enters upon his 
life work the Spirit (Mark 1 12 - 13 ) leads him to the wilder- 
ness and allows him to decide freely for or against God. 
God never forces himself upon us. He always respects man's 
personality. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 11 

Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

SIXTH DAY 

Yet God's Great Plan for the World will be Ultimately Perfected 
Despite the Delays and Disorder Introduced by Human Perversity 

[Daniel 4 32 .] 

II Cor. 13 8 ; Rom. 3 B ,9 17 ' 18 ' 28 , 11 "- 

Mark 4 26 " 29 ' 30 " 32 ; Matt. 13 24 " J30 ' 31 " 33 ' 37 " 43 , 15 13 . 



Acts l 7 , 5 38 ' 39 ; James 5 1 '*. 

"Most of them, even the idiots and criminals, do a little 
something towards progress. The world is so happily ordered 
that it is impossible for one man to do much harm or to 
avoid doing some good, and one of the greatest forces for 
good is the power of a bad example." 

George H. Lorimer. 

"And then when he cannot use us any more for our own 
good, he will use us for the good of others — an example of the 
misery .... to which any soul must come, when all the 
good ends and all the holy callings of God's friendly and 
fatherly purpose are exhausted. Or, it may be now that, 
remitting all other plans and purposes in our behalf, he will 
henceforth use us, wholly against our will, to be the demonstra- 
tion of his justice and avenging power before the eyes of 
mankind." 

Bushnell: The New Life, page 15. 

"Suppose two men before a chessboard — the one a novice, 
the other an expert player of the game. The expert intends 
to beat. But he cannot foresee exactly what any one actual 
move of his adversary may be. He knows, however, all the 
possible moves of the latter ; and he knows in advance how to 
meet each of them by a move of his own which leads in the 
direction of victory. And the victory infallibly arrives, after 
no matter how devious a course, in the one predestined check- 
mate to the novice's king Let now the novice stand for 

us finite free agents, and the expert for the infinite mind in 



12 THE WILL OF GOD 

which the universe lies The Creator's plan of the 

universe would thus be left blank as to many of its actual 

details, but all possibilities would be marked down But 

the rest of the plan including its final upshot would be rigor- 
ously determined once for all Of one thing, however, 

he [the Creator] might be certain; and that is that his world 
was safe and that no matter how much it might zigzag, he 
could surely bring it home at last." 

James: The Will to Believe, pages 181, 182. 



Study I. God has a Plan for Every Human Life 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Is it right to say that the life of every man who ever 
lived in the world, sinner or saint, was lived as planned by 
God; or that God had a plan for every man which may or 
may not have been realized? 

2. Have cripples and the insane a part in God's plan 
for the world? 

3. Have criminals a part also? Have sin and tempta- 
tion? 

4. Why is the theory that God has a plan for the world 
so common in history and science today? 

5. Why are men often unwilling to find out God's plan 
for their lives ? 

6. Has God a plan for the development of every town 
and city in the world? (Jer. 18 5 ' 6 ; Matt. 23 37 ) for every 
school and university? for every home? Have any of these 
ever been fully realized? What is the test? 

7. Can God use his enemies for the accomplishment of 
his purposes? (Cf. Acts 4 27 ' 28 , 25 9 " 12 + Rom. 1 13 .) 



STUDY II 

Jesus and the Will of God 

"For I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, 
but the will of him that sent me." — John 6:38. 

"My Father .... not as I will, but as thou wilt." 

—Matt. 26 : 39. 

"My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to accomplish 
his work." — John 4:34. 

"I do always the things that are pleasing to him." 

—John 8: 29 (end). 

"Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he 
might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will 
of our God and Father." —Gal. 1:3, 4. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Speer. Principles of Jesus. Chapter III. — "Jesus and the Will 
of God." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 15 

Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

FIRST DAY 

The Idea that the Doing of God's Will is the Supreme Purpose of Life 
was not Originated by Jesus but was Restated and Emphasized 
by Him 

" Tho' truths in manhood darkly j oin 
Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
We yield all blessing to the name 
Of him that made them current coin." 

Texxysox: In Memoriam. 

[Psalms 40 7 ' 8 , 139 2 S 143 10 ; Daniel 4 17 . Read also 
Gen. 22 1 ' 12 .'] 
Matt. 13 35 . 
Heb. 10 7 . 

"Almost everything Christ said was old. Christ's teach- 
ing was almost all taken out of the Old Testament. Almost 
all of the Sermon on the Mount could be constructed from the 
Old Testament. Many of Christ's parables have their roots 
in suggestions in the Old Testament. Some of Christ's 
miracles are clearly only the working out of Old Testament 
teachings. The body and substance of Christ's doctrine was 
borrowed, with a new spirit and life, of course, from the Old 

Testament He was constantly telling those who took 

him for a novel instructor, that everything was in their own 
records and temples if their eyes were only open to see it." 

Speer: Remember Jesus Christ, page 197. 

"This was largely Christ's own method. He dealt with 
principles. His teaching was mainly excavation — the dis- 
interring of hidden things, the bringing to light of the pro- 
found ethical principles hidden beneath Rabbinic subtleties 
and Pharisaic forms." 

Drummond: The New Evangelism, pages 70, 71. 

"Innumerable men had passed by, across the universe, 
with a dumb, vague wonder, such as the very animals may 



16 THE WILL OF GOD 

feel or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder such as 
men only feel: — till the great thinker came — the original 
man, the seer; whose shaped spoken thoughts awake the 
slumbering capability of all into thought. It is eyer the way 
with the thinker, the Spiritual Hero. What he says all men 
were not far from saying, were longing to say." 

Carlyle: Heroes and Hero Worship. 

"Although it was known in Old Testament times and 
expressed in Old Testament books, it was reseryed for Jesus 
Christ to make the full discoyery to the world and add to his 
teaching another of the profoundest truths which haye come 
from heayen to earth — that the mysteries of the Father's will 
are hid in this word 'obey/ " 

Drummoxd: The Ideal Life, page 311. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 17 

Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

SECOND DAY 

To Find God's Will for His Life and to Do it, was the Ruling Principle 
and the Energizing Purpose of Jesus' Life 

Gal. 1 4 ; Rom. 15 3 ; Matt. 4 10 , 6 10 , 26 38 " 42 ; Heb. 10 5 " 10 ; 
John 4 34 , 5 30 , 6 38 , 9 4 . 

This principle 

Was the reason for the Incarnation. John 6 38 . 

Settled the Temptation. Matt. 4 10 . 

Is a central thought in the Lord's Prayer. Matt. 6 10 . 

Was the energizing cause of Jesus' marvelous ministry 
of service. John 4 34 . 

Inspired the sacrifice of the Crucifixion. Gal. 1 4 ; Matt. 
26 38 " 42 . 

"The Will of God was Jesus' North Star." 

John R. Mott. 

"What he [Jesus] desires first of all to communicate is 
not a system of doctrine or a rush of feeling but an ethical 
decision. Before his public ministry begins he withdraws 
from human companionship and faces the special temptations 
of conscious power, of self display and of worldly glory 
which threaten him. Once and for all time he fortifies his 
will against them, and from that time to the day when he 
gives back his life to God, saying, 'Not my will but thine 
be done/ the dominating factor, both in his experience and 
his teaching, is not intellectual achievement or emotional ex- 
altation but ethical decision." 

F. G. Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Char- 
acter, pages 100, 101, 



18 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

THIRD DAY 

He Faced the Alternatives to doing God's Will as Definite, Conscious, 
Spiritual Temptations, and Successfully Overcame Them 

Matt. 4 1 " 11 ; Luke 4 113 . 

The temptation in the Wilderness was the crisis when 
Jesus came face to face with the three alternative life purposes, 
which a man may choose other than that of a life of complete 
surrender to God's will. The four possible choices may all 
be found in the narrative given by Matthew and Luke: 

1. The life of mere physical self-indulgence. Matt. 
4 3 ; Luke 4 3 . 

2. The life of mere wealth-amassing. Matt. 4 8 ' 9 ; Luke 
4 5 " s . 

3. The life of mere fame-seeking. Matt. 4 5 ' 6 ; Luke 
4 9 ' 11 . 

4. The life wholly surrendered to God, Matt. 4 10 . 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 19 



Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

FOURTH DAY 

There were Certain Definite Ways in which He Learned the Will of 
God for His Life 

Matt. 6 28 , 18 12 " 14 , 26 39 " 44 ; Heb. 10 7 ; John 5 30 , 6 39 , 

7 17 , 8 28 . 

A careful study of the way in which Jesus learned the 
definite will of God for each particular event in his life will 
be taken up later. It is sufficient at this time to note some of 
the more general and outwardly discernible ways by which he 
came in touch with God's leading: 

1. Through willingness to obey any order which might 
come from God before he knew what it was. Robertson has 
said that obedience not mind is the organ of spiritual knowl- 
edge. "He that is willing shall know." John 7 17 . 

2. From God's revelation of himself in such human 
types as the shepherd and the father. Matt. 18 12 " 14 ; John 
6 39 . 

3. From God's revelation of himself in nature. Matt. 
6 28 . 

4. From God's revelation of himself in Scripture and in 
history. Heb. 10 7 ; Luke 13 x - 5 . 

5. By the definite act of listening for God. "As I hear." 
"As the father taught me." John 5 30 , 8 28 . 

6. By repeated prayer until sure conviction came. Mark 

1 35-40. Ma * tt# 26 39-44 t 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

FIFTH DAY 

There were Definite and Immediate Issues of this Obedience in Jesus' 
Earthly Life 

Phil. 2 5 " 8 ; Matt. 26 38 " 42 . 

1. Ceaseless activity to accomplish his work — "that I 
should lose nothing/' John 6 39 , 4 34 ' 35 J , but 

A strong support to work with — "my meat." John 4 34 * 

2. The cup of suffering. Matt. 26 38 . "Obedient even 
unto death." Phil. 2 5 " 8 , but 

A sweet fellowship therein which transcends all pain — 
"brother, sister, mother." Matt. 12 50 . 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 21 



Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

SIXTH DAY 

The Ultimate Results 

Phil. 2 s " 11 (cf. I John 2 1T ). "He is exalted"— fullest 
self-realization. 

Heb. 10 2 " 10 . "We have been sanctified" — the joy of 
having helped others. 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study II. Jesus and the Will of God 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. How early was Jesus conscious that the doing of 
God's will should be the purpose of a man's life? (Cf. Luke 
2 49 ; John 8 29 .) 

2. Today we have the example and teaching of Jesus 
as revealed in the New Testament to show us what the will 
of God is. From what sources did Jesus learn? 

3. Which one of the Hebrew patriarchs first grasped 
this idea? Trace its growth in the later books of the Old 
Testament. (See Davidson, The Called of God.) 

4. Has every man, even without intellectual effort, some 
faint leading of what God's will for his life is? Is the dis- 
tinction between right and wrong inborn or acquired? What 
are some indications of such leading common to both Christian 
and non-Christian people? 

5. What is the teaching of Socrates on the subject of 
obedience to God's will in the Apology, Crito and Phaedo? 

6. May a man unconsciously do the will of God and jtt 
get the same results as if he had chosen to do it? 

7. Did Jesus ever rebel against the will of God in the 
earlier years of his life? 



STUDY HI 

The Apostles and the Will of God 

"Ye are witnesses of these things." 

Jesus to the Twelve — Luke 24:48. 

"Christ .... in whom also we were made a heritage, having been 
foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things 
after the counsel of his will." —Eph. 1 : 10, 11, 

."And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye trans- 
formed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the 
good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." 

Paul to the Roman Christians — Rom. 12:2, 



£4 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

FIRST DAY 

To the Apostles and Immediate Followers of Jesus Was Intrusted the 
Interpretation and Practical Application of His Teaching Regarding 
the Will of God 

Matt. 13 51 : 52 ; Luke 24 48 ; Acts 10 40 " 43 . 

To his apostles and immediate followers Jesus left the 
difficult and responsible task of interpreting and practically 
applying to the age in which they lived, the great eternal 
principle that obedience to God's will is the one purpose of 
life; a principle which, as we have already seen, although 
stated in the Old Testament, Jesus had unearthed and for the 
first time fully made clear (John 8 12 ). The revelation and 
dissemination of this new truth carried with it grave dangers 
(John 15 22 ' 24 ; 9 41 )> and the apostles undoubtedly realized 
the importance of their task. Many of the letters are con- 
cerned with correcting of false teaching regarding God's will. 
So thorough was their preaching of it that there are few 
chapters in the entire New Testament which are not dominated 
by the general idea, and few books or letters which do not 
deal with it directly. The manifold growth of the idea under 
the different conditions which presented themselves in widely 
diverse communities, and the interpretation of each new situa- 
tion by the different Christian leaders forms a most interest- 
ing study but one too long to be attempted here. We must con- 
fine ourselves to the working out of the principle in the lives 
of the leaders of the early church. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 25 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

SECOND DAY 

The Early Church and the Will of God 
Acts 1 •"", 2 x - 4 ' 41 , 4 32 " 35 . 

In Acts we have the story of the obedience of the early 
church to God's call and leading, with the record of its tri- 
umphant results. The early Christian leaders had no doubt as 
to their own mission (Acts 10 4 °- 43 ). Study the power of the 
early church in winning converts in spite of great persecution 
(8 1 ' 4 , 5 41 , 19 20 ) ; also the difficulty which was sometimes ex- 
perienced in making clear to men what surrender to God's will 
meant (19 1_6 ). Note also that the form in which God's will 
was revealed to men was through compelling convictions (cf. 
19 21 ). "I must." "We must." 

Ananias (9 10_18 ), Philip (8 2Q ), Agabus (ll 28 , 21 13 ), 
early disciples (13 2 , 15 2 \ 21 4 ), Cornelius (10 3 > 22 > 30 ' 31 ), 
Peter (10 10 , ll 12 , 12 7 ), Paul (9 4 " 7 , 16 6 ' 9 ' 10 , 18 9 > 10 , 19 21 , 
2g 7, lo, it, is, 21^ 23 *\ 2d 1 *, 27 28 ). 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

THIRD DAY 

Peter and the Will of God 
John 21 15 " 22 . 

Perhaps the most complete change that takes place within 
the circle of Jesus' followers after the resurrection is in Peter. 
Review briefly the main facts in his career from his call to 
Jesus' crucifixion (John l 40 f; Matt. 14 29 " 31 , 17 x f; 26 37 f; 
Mark 14 68 ). What indications of self-will in his life? What 
motives generally influenced his actions in this period? Study 
the passage given for today's study as the crisis in his spiritual 
career. What does verse 22 indicate regarding God's will for 
the individual? After the ascension what change in his atti- 
tude? (Acts 5 29_32 .) When had Jesus foreseen and predicted 
this change? (Luke 22 31 ' 32 .) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 27 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

FOURTH DAY 

Philip and the Will of God 

Acts 8 26 - 40 . 

Another striking witness to the power of God in trans- 
forming a man's life when that man becomes fully obedient 
to God's will is the case of Philip. "Philip .... we may 
call .... with all respect for his goodness and his eminent 
usefulness, the stupid apostle. He is able to see only what lies 
generally on the surface of things, but nothing beyond." 
(Thompson, "The Training of^the Twelve." Northfield 
Echoes: Vol. Ill, No. 2, page 125.) Study the instances of 
his dullness before he had grasped the idea of complete sur- 
render of self (John 6 ^ 12 20 ~ 22 y 14 8 ' 9 ). Then examine care- 
fully the record of his personal interview with the Ethiopian 
eunuch. What evidences of keen spiritual apprehension and 
power of diagnosis? To what is this change to be ascribed? 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

FIFTH DAY 

Paul and the W r ill of God 

Acts 9 1_22 . 

What do we know about Paul's career before the spiritual 
crisis on the Damascus road? (Acts 8 1_3 .) What was his at- 
titude toward the Christians ? Study carefully the passage for 
today's study. How account for the completeness of his sur- 
render of self to Jesus? Through what means was God's will 
for the immediate future revealed to him ? Where did he work 
out the more complete details? (Gal. 1 16 ' 1T .) What were some 
of the issues of this crisis in Paul's later life ? 

"There is the outline of a wonderful development here, 
from the young Jew who superintended Stephen's martyrdom 
to the prophet of the Gentiles, tender, strong, leaning like a 
little child on the mercy and help of Christ, meeting his own 
martyrdom with no anger at human sin, no shrieks of fanatic 
disappointment, but the secret confidence that even in death he 
was being led in triumph in Christ." 

Speer: The Man Paul, page 38. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 29 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

SIXTH DAY 

Paul and the Will of God (concluded) 

I Thess. 4 2 " 12 . 

In his letters Paul gives many practical expositions and 
applications to different situations of the principle of surrender 
of self to God, which had transformed his life. In / Thessa- 
lonians, the earliest of the epistles, he defines the will of God 
(4 2 " 12 ). In Galatians he sounds a protest against the attempt 
to substitute moral living for this life of absolute surrender of 
self. In I Corinthians he demonstrates that God's will can be 
done in all professions (7 20 ~ 24 , 10 31 ), and by all kinds of 
men (1 26_31 ^ 7 7 ). Romans contains his protest against the 
attempt to substitute membership in an established religious 
body for the life of absolute self-surrender (6 13 , 8 14 ' 15 , 12 1 ). 
In Colossians he demonstrates the relation of obedience to wis- 
dom (1 9 ' 10 , 2 3 ). In Ephesians he restates again in practical 
terms what God's will is (4 25 — 5 17 ). In Philippians he as- 
serts that God can use everything which befalls a man who is 
living the surrendered life — suffering, opposition, death — so 
that he will rejoice and glory in his sufferings and feel that, 
for Jesus' sake, even to die is gain (1 21 , 2 5_11 ). He also 
demonstrates in this letter that a sure issue of obedience is a 
mighty power to achieve results (4 13 ). 



30 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study III. The Apostles and the Will of God 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. How did John's acceptance of the principle of sur- 
render of self to God differ from that of Peter or Paul? 
(John 21 20 ' 22 .) 

2. Did Jesus ever force this principle upon others? 
(Matt. 23 37 .) 

3. How many of the Apostles had made the act of 
surrender at the time of the crucifixion? 

4. Trace the working of this principle in the lives of 
Thomas and Judas. (Cf. John 20 24 " 29 .) 



STUDY IV 

The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing God's Will a 
Reasonable One and Fundamental in Other Departments of Life 

"Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth 
by itself alone: but if it die, it beareth much fruit." — John 12: 24. 

"Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants 
unto obedience, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin 
unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." — Rom. 6:16. 

"The nations owe their existence to the willingness of the best 
and the most unselfish, the strongest and the purest, to offer them- 
selves for sacrifice. Whatever humanity possesses of the highest 
good has been achieved by such men." * 

Paulsen: System of Ethics, page 159. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Peabody. Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, page 200 ff. 
Palmer. The Nature of Goodness. Chapter VI.—"Self-Sacrince." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 33 



Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

FIRST DAY 

Self-development the Primary Law of Life 

Matt. 25 14 " 30 ; Luke 2 52 . 
Heb. II 6 ' 26 . 

James, William: Principles of Psychology (1890), I., 
page 307 ff. ' 

Tv&Oi aeavTov — "Know thyself ' (Inscription at Delphi). 

"A knowledge of his own heart .... that is the best 
of all keys to a knowledge of the hearts of others/' 

Plummer: Expositor's Bible, James, page 339. 

"Self-realization is the primary law of life. It is not 
selfish to cultivate one's faculties or to utilize one's oppor- 
tunities. Faculties and opportunities are possessed only as 
they are developed and used, and without cultivation shrivel 
and disappear. Jesus himself teaches this truth with unusual 
elaboration in the parable of the talents. The gifts of life, 
according to this impressive picture, increase in the using 
and shrink through disuse. To cultivate one's powers is to 
multiply them, and from him who fails to increase his stock 
is taken away that which seemed his own." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, pages 
199, 200. 



34 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

SECOND DAY 

Yet Self-sacrifice Alone Satisfies the Moral Demands of Life 

I Cor. 8 12 » 13 , 9 22 ; II Cor. 11 23 " 29 ; Phil. 3 7 ' 11 . 
Mark 8 34 ; Matt. 10 38 , 16 24 ; Luke 9 23 , 14 27 . 
John 12 25 . 

"Instead of the sagacious maxims of self-interest there 
is heard the call to the heroic, the self-forgetting, the larger 

good Self-abnegation, self-effacement, even the scorn 

of self, becomes the mark of positive morality; and the self- 
considering, computing, prudential spirit is a sign that positive 
morality has not yet begun/' 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, pages 
201, 202. 

"Self-sacrifice is an everyday affair. By it we live. It 
is the very air of our moral lungs. Without it society could 

not go on for one hour I mean by self-sacrifice any 

diminution of my own possessions, pleasures or powers in 
order to increase those of others .... the greatest conceiv- 
able sacrifice is when I give myself; when, that is, I in some 
way allow my own powers to be narrowed in order that those 

of some one else may be enlarged Yet this is what is 

going on all over the country where devoted mother, gallant 
son, loyal husband are limiting their own range of existence 
for the sake of broadening that of certain whom they hold 
dear." 

Palmer: The Nature of Goodness, pages 164-166. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 35 



Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

THIRD DAY 

The Solution of the Dilemma ; Full Self-realization Possible Only 
Through Self-surrender 

Mark 8 35 ; Matt. 6 33 , 10 39 , 16 25 ; Luke 9 24 . 

"What, their, is my duty, cries out, in grave perplexity, 
this life which finds itself rent by opposing motives — to de- 
velop myself or to deny myself; to hear the command of Jesus 
bidding me invest my talents prudently, or to hear his other 
command bidding me sell all I have, take up my cross 
and follow? .... Jesus meets the issue with his paradcx 
of sacrifice. There is, he teaches, *no such schism in life 
between gain and loss, self-cultivation and self-abnegation, 
the finding of life and the losing of it. The field of duty-doing 
is not a battlefield where duties to one's self contend against 
duties to others ; it is a field where human life like other living 
things is growing; and growth by its very nature, means 
transmission, expansion, the giving of the root to the stalk, 
and of the stalk to the flower — a loss which is gain and a 
death which is life. In short, when Jesus announces the 
paradox that to save life is to lose it, and that to lose it is 
to save it, he is transferring to conduct the general law which 
the process of Nature had disclosed to his observant eye." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, pages 
202 3 208, 



36 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

FOURTH DAY 

The Witness of Science and of Nature 
I Cor. 15 3G ; John 12 2 \ 

"Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strong- 
est manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian 
conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down 
before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every 
pre-conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever 
abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have 
only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have 
resolved at all risks to do this." 

Huxley: Life and Letters of Huxley (1900), Vol. I, 
page 285. 

"The same paradox is observed in biological organisms, in 
physiological tissues, in intellectual achievements, even in 
economic progress. Physical health, which seems to depend 
on that which the body receives, depends in fact quite as much 
on what is exhaled and excreted." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, page 
208 ff. 

"The life alike of the corn and of the conscience, was, as 
Jesus saw it, a process of development through service, of 
self-realization through self-sacrifice. The life that with- 
held itself was checked and dwarfed; the life that yielded 
itself was enriched and confirmed. Assimilation and elimina- 
tion, receiving to give, dying to live — such was the rhythm 
of nature which Jesus discovered alike in the fields of Galilee 
and in the life of men." 

Ibid., page 203. 

"Question. What is the duty of man? Answer. To 
assist his fellows, to develop his own higher self, to strive 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 37 

towards good in every way open to his powers and generally to 
seek to know the laws of nature and to obey the will of God 
in whose service alone can be found that harmonious exercise 
of the faculties which is synonymous with perfect freedom." 
Sir Oliver Lodge : The Substance of Faith, page 188. 

In bridgebuilding, even a weak girder or beam, if placed 
so as to bear its load in conformity with the laws of nature, 
will support an immense weight. The strongest girder, on 
the other hand, if set contrary to these laws, will soon give 
way beneath the pressure. 



38 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

FIFTH DAY 

Tbe Witness of History and of Human Experience 

[Eccl. 11 \] 

II Cor. 9 6 ; Mark 10 43 > 44 ; Rev. 7 13 " 17 , 14 13 . 

"The nations owe their existence to the willingness of the 
best and the most unselfish, the strongest and the purest, to 
offer themselves for sacrifice. Whatever humanity possesses 
of the highest good has been achieved by such men." 

Paulsen: System of Ethics, page 159. 

"Life stripped to its essentials offers but two alternatives 
to the man of action. He may work for himself alone, build- 
ing his little selfish walls across the advancing path of civiliza- 
tion and making them stumbling-blocks in the way of progress. 
Then, however successful he may be, ultimately the stern 
mills of the gods will grind him and his structures to dust, 
and he and his work will vanish from the earth. Or having 
the eyes that see, he may place his effort parallel with the 
eternal lines of force that mark the purposes of God and 
then what he builds will endure/ ' 

Herbert Knox Smith: To Yale Alumni of Hartford, 
Feb. 8, 1907. 

"He who would understand a painting must give himself 
to it." Ruskin. 

"Intellectual growth seems a matter of accumulated 
learning; but an undigested mass of erudition leaves one a 
bookworm rather than a scholar, and productive expression 
alone clarifies and sifts the scholar's mind. The movement 
of trade is on its surface a mere scramble of self-seeking; but 
in its total action economic life is a vast tidal process of pro- 
duction and distribution, of multiplying by investing, of in- 
crease through use. To hoard one's possessions is to lose their 
increment." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, page 
204. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 39 



Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

SIXTH DAY 

The Witness of the Life of Jesus 

Phil. 2 6 " 11 ; MarklO 45 . 

"If we estimate the greatness of a man by the influence 
which he has exerted on mankind, there can be no question, 
even from the secular point of view, that Christ is much the 
greatest man who has ever lived/ ' 

Romanes: Thoughts on Religion, page 169. 

"Many followers of Jesus and many critics of his teach- 
ing have conceived that the character derived from him is a 
stunted and truncated type which flings itself away in self- 
abandoning and self-scorning altruism. The fact is, on the 
contrary, that the paradox of sacrifice indicates the only way 
of deliverance from the stunted and truncated life. Nothing 
shuts in a life and shuts out satisfaction and joy like the self- 
considering temper and the self-centered aim. Such a life, 
though it may seem to itself self-developing, is in fact self- 
deceived. Instead of growing richer in its resources, it finds 
itself growing poorer. The more it cultivates itself, the more 
sterile it grows; the more it accumulates, the less it has; the 
more it saves, the more it is lost. The paradox of Jesus is 
the picture of a character which is enriched by spending, de- 
veloped by serving, happier itself because it makes a happier 
world, finding itself in losing itself, discovering the unity of 
the moral world, where sacrifice is growth and service is free- 
dom." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, page 
206. 



40 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study IV. The Principle of Surrender of Self Involved in Doing 
God's Will a Reasonable One 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. When duties to self and duties to others appear to be 
in conflict which shall we fulfil? 

2. Is a man's ability to serve others proportional to his 
physical, mental and spiritual talents ? 

3. Was Jesus' life a narrow one? 

4. Can a man grow narrow by overmuch service of 
others ? 

5. When is a man justified in turning from service to 
develop or conserve his own powers? 



B. THE DECISION TO DO GOD'S WILL 

Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to 
Other Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences. 

Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life 
Purpose. 

Study VII. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue 
of Surrender of Self. Its Symptoms and its Course. 

Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life 
is an Achievement Possible for Any Man. 

Study IX. God's Will may be Done in Any Honorable Trade 
or Profession Either at Home or Abroad. 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self * 



STUDY V 

The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other Religious Rites 
and Spiritual Experiences 

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
which is in heaven." — Matt. 7:21. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bovine. The Christian Life, pp. 89-119. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 45 



Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

FIRST DAY 

Every Man Must, Sooner or Later, Face the Issue of his Personal 
Relation to God, and When Once the Question is Raised, Perfect 
Peace of Mind and Soul can be Thereafter Secured, only by the 
Deliberate Decision to do God's Will Unconditionally, Whenever 
it shall be Clearly Revealed 

[Ps. 189 1 " 24 .] 

Investigation shows that there are three ideas which 
no human beings savage or civilized, is without; the distinction 
between right and wrong, the desire for eternal life and the 
conception of a supreme being or God. The problem of man's 
relation to God is, therefore, a universal and eternal one, and 
for the purpose of settling this question our life on this earth 
seems to have been given us (Acts 17 26 ' 2T ). In the Old 
Testament we find many attempts of man to justify himself 
before God through outward form of sacrifice or ritual, and 
through the meditation of a priest (Ps. 51). But even the 
prophets of those days saw clearly that such impersonal and 
external methods would not suffice to bring peace (Hosea 6 6 ; 
Isaiah 58 3_11 ), inasmuch as religion is a vital personal matter, 
"the life of God in the soul of man." What then is this vital, 
personal act of self-surrender whereby the life of God enters 
the soul of man (Gal. 2 20 ; II Cor. 6 16 ; John 3 3 , 14 2S ), 
and which, being the final settlement of the greatest life prob- 
lem, brings perfect peace? 



46 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

SECOND DAY 

Is this Act Necessarily the Same Thing as the Decision to Live a 
Moral Life? 

I Cor. 4 4 ; Rom. S »'■ 22 > 81 , 10 3 ; Eph. 2 8 . 
Matt. 19 16_22 ; Acts 11 16 , 19 1_7 . 

There are two great facts in the world — sin and right- 
eousness. Conversion is popularly regarded as the breaking 
away from sin — generally from some one particular sin like 
intemperance, or impurity, or dishonesty. With most of us 
life is a series of such breaks. 

In such a break with wrong-living a man often gives up 
one particular sin to God but he still retains his own control 
over the rest of his life. It is true that some men — especially 
those in middle life — who are converted from some desperate 
sin which has made them outcasts, surrender themselves en- 
tirely to God when they are converted and this explains such 
lives of power as Jerry McAuley and S. H. Hadley. But it is 
perfectly possible for a man to have broken with one of his 
besetting sins and yet live an unsurrendered life. 

The book of Galatians is a protest against the attempt 
to substitute moral living for the self-surrendered life. Paul 
realizes the value of morality. The struggle for it is the first 
step toward self-surrender (Gal. S 24 ), but as the writer of 
Hebrews urges we are to pass on further (Heb. 5 1X - 14 , 6 1 ' 2 ). 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 47 

Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

THIRD DAY 

Is it Always the Same Thing as Such Rites of Confession as Baptism, or 
Uniting with the Church, or Partaking of the Communion? 

I Cor. 13 1 ; Rom. 8 9 (end), 9 6 ; II Tim. 3 5 . 



Mark 7 G " 8 , 12 32 ' 33 ; Matt. 3 9 , 21 28 " 31 ; Luke 3 8 , 6 
5 " 27 , 18 9 " 14 . 



It is not alone necessary to break with sin — man must 
lay hold on righteousness. Through the outward rites of con- 
fession, such as baptism, uniting with the church, and par- 
taking of the Lord's Supper, man is brought into the fellow- 
ship of Christians and into the presence of God (Luke 13 26 ). 
But all such rites may be the act of our going into God's pres- 
ence, not of our letting him come into ours. It is one 
thing to "eat and drink in his presence" where we still have 
the say as to the running of things, and another and very 
different thing to "open the door and let him come in" to 
direct the feast (Rev. 3 20 ). It is true that many men do 
make the entire surrender when they join the church (Gal. 3: 
27 ) ; there are others who yield to God when very young, 
through the mediation of a mother's Christian nurture; others 
still at the first communion or even in baptism. This explains 
such lives of power as Drummond and Brooks which seem 
to have laid hold on God with no cataclysmic break from sin. 
But it is perfectly possible for a man to embrace the forms 
of righteousness and yet never have given God complete con- 
trol of his life. Furthermore it is conceivable that a man, as 
for instance in pioneer country, without opportunity for public 
confession such as uniting with the church, might be doing 
God's will perfectly outside the church. A man who joins 
a rival church to spite his opponent or for self-interest is cer- 
tainly not doing God's will. Hence, here again, the attempt 
to make the act of self-surrender synonymous with public 
confession is not inclusive enough. 



Stair V. The Reletioa of the Act of S -io wfa of Self to Other 



7 I-URTH DAY 



Is it Necessarily the Sit T bieg as the Deeasaoa fee Live a 
PUeadvoay, Gwwwmg Money aad Tisae Cm- the Upfiftb^ of 
I? 



I Cor. 13 » {first half) 

A:- *- --: Kt:. II : . 

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find God. True we auzjr, bat do we always? "If I bestow all 
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possibility which lay before the rich young roler. MatL 19 

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1: Gzi 5 -^ill 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 49 

man without money or intellectual talents or physical health 
could not do God's will. Hence, again, the attempt to make 
the act of self-surrender synonymous with philanthropy is 
not inclusive enough. 



Study "V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

FIFTH DAY 

Is it Always the same Thing as " Volunteering" — the Consecration of 
One's Life to Foreign Missionary Service? 

I Cor. 13 3 (second half). 

Jesus' last command was that the gospel should be 
preached to every nation. There is no more apparent form of 
consecration or self-sacrifice than Foreign Missionary service. 
Yet some lives of missionaries might be cited which have been 
utter failures, both in achievement and in their moral re- 
sults. It is true that it is possible for any man to make the 
complete surrender to God when he makes the decision to 
"go to the foreign field if God permits;" he may do so when 
he decides to live his life in a particular place in response to 
a particular need; but it should always be distinctly pointed 
out that this latter decision, alone, in itself is not a complete 
surrender of a man's whole self to God — his pride, his beset- 
ting sin, his laziness, his unfilial attitude toward objecting 
parents. Furthermore, the act of complete self-surrender 
must obviously also include the willingness not to be a mis- 
sionary but a ditch-digger if God so wills, for God's will is to 
be done in business, teaching, law and medicine at home just 
as much as abroad. For one, therefore, to regard the act of 
self -surrender as synonymous with "volunteering" is again 
not inclusive enough in that it confuses an act which should be 
the mainspring of every occupation and profession at home or 
abroad with the act which decides the geographical location of 
one's profession. 



50 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

SIXTH DAY 

The Act of Self-surrender 

II Cor. 8 5 ; Matt. 11 28 ' 29 ; Heb. 11 *■ 6 ; Rev. 3 20 ; John 

1 12 , 5 40 . 

The act of self-surrender is a definite, conscious, personal 
compact between a man and God alone, entirely independent 
of all outward religious rites, forms or services, and for 
which no outward form, rite or sacrifice can be substituted. 
Man voluntarily gives God absolute possession of his life 
and God comes in. This act is often coincident with such 
outward manifestations of spiritual experiences as conver- 
sion, baptism, uniting with the church or volunteering, but it 
need not be; and it is perfectly possible for a man to enter 
into any or all of the above states without surrender to the will 
of God at all. Right living, public confession and ceaseless ser- 
vice are the subsequent issues of a decision to do God's will 
not the substitutes fo% it, and without the previous energizing 
and life-giving impetus within of a decision to do God's will 
they are merely an artificial and laborious human manufacture 
and not a healthy, spontaneous, and continuous natural 
growth. 

"One man will tell you that the end of life is to be true; 
another will tell you that it is to deny self; another will say 
it is to keep the Ten Commandments; a fourth will point you 
to the Beatitudes. One will tell you it is to do good, another 
that it is to get good, another that it is to be good. But 
the end of life is none of these things. It is more than all 
and it includes them all. The end of life is not to deny self, 
nor to be true, nor to keep the Ten Commandments — [it is] 
simply to do God's will. It is not to get good, nor be good, 
nor even to do good — [it is] just what God wills, whether 
that be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or suffer- 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 51 

ing or recovering, or living or dying It is not to be 

happy or to be successful or famous, or to do the best we can 
and get on honestly in the world. It is something far higher 

than this, to do God's will We do not mean, Are we 

doing God's work? — preaching or teaching or collecting 
money — but God's will. A man may think he is doing God's 
work when he is not even doing God's will. And a man may be 
doing God's work and God's will quite as much by hewing 
stones or sweeping streets as by preaching or praying. So 
the question means just this — Are we working out our com- 
mon everyday life on the great lines of God's will? This is 
different from the world's model life — 'I come to push my 
way' — this is the world's idea of it. 'Not my way, not my 

will but thine be done' — this is the Christian's 'Thy 

will be done 9 — now mark the emphasis on done. He 
prays that God's will may be done. It is not that God's 
will may be borne, endured, put up with. There is activity 

in his prayer. It is not mere resignation The ideal 

man .... does not want a bed of roses or his pathway 
strewn with flowers. He wants to do God's will. He does 
not want health or wealth, nor does he covet sickness or 
poverty — just what God sends. He does not want success — 
even success in winning souls — or want of success. What God 
wills for him, that is all. He does not want to prosper in 
business or to keep barely struggling on. God knows what is 
best. He does not want his friends to live, himself to live or 
die. God's will be done ! The currents of his life flow far 
deeper than the circumstance of things. There is a deeper 
principle in it than to live to gratify himself. And so he 
simply asks that in the ordinary round of his daily life there 
may be no desire of his heart more deep, more vivid, more 
absorbingly present than this, 'Thy will be done.' ' 

Drummoxd: The Ideal Life, pages 229-238 {passim). 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study V. The Relation of the Act of Surrender of Self to Other 
Religious Rites and Spiritual Experiences 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Is the act of self-surrender a necessary, or merely 
a higher spiritual experience? 

2. Are only those who do God's will saved? (Matt. 7 21 .) 

3. Need a person lead a moral life to do God's will? 

4. Need a person join the church to do God's will? 

5. Need a person be baptized to do God's will? 

6. Need a person partake of communion to do God's 
will? 

7. Which of these rites did Jesus engage in? 

8. In how far were the Anabaptists of Luther's day 
right in their doctrine? What was their error? 

9. Has the act of making a public confession in a revival 
meeting a relation to God's will? Is public confession 
necessary? Should it come before or after surrender to 
God's will in one's own closet? 

10. Study the following deed of consecration in the light 
of the week's study: 

"This sixteenth day of November, 1895, I, Hugh McA. 
Beaver, do of my own free will, give myself, all that I am 
and have, entirely, unreservedly, and unqualifiedly to him, 
whom having not seen I love, on whom, though now I see him 
not, I believe. Bought with a price, I give myself to him 
who at the cost of his own blood, purchased me. Now com- 
mitting myself to him who is able to guard me from stumbling. 

I trust myself to him, for all things to be used as he 

shall see fit where he shall see fit. Sealed by the Holy Spirit, 
filled with the peace of God that passeth understanding, to 
him be all glory, world without end. Amen." 

Speer: A Memorial of a True Life, page 136. 



STUDY VI 

The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

"But he said unto him, A certain man made a great supper; and 
he bade many: and he sent forth his servant at supper time to say 
to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And 
they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto 
him, I have bought a field and I must needs go out and see it: I 
pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought iive 
yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. 
And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot 
come." — Luke 14 : 16-20. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Newman, J. H. Plain and Parochial Sermons. Vol. II., No. 1.— 
"The World's Benefactors." 

Moody, D. L. Select Sermons. "Excuses." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 55 

Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

FIRST DAY 

God or Mammon. Enlistment with One or the Other Inevitable. 
There is no Middle Course. Refusal to Enlist with God is 
Enlistment with Mammon 

Gal. I 10 ; Rom. 6 15 " 23 , 8 14 ' 15 ; Col. 3 22 ; II Tim. 3 4 . 
Matt. 6 22 " 24 ; Luke 11 23 ; Rev. 3 15 ' 16 ; II Peter 2 19 . 

Many men object to the word "surrender" in connection 
with the decision to do God's will on the ground that it 
characterizes us as rebels against God, and that such an act 
must take away all personal liberty. That this is in fact 
not so will be demonstrated later. (Study VII — Sixth Day.) 
But even if it were could we object? Are we in a position 
to demand rights of God or do we not rather, from the very 
start, owe him obligations? (Rom. 9 19 " 21 ; Luke 17 7 ' 10 ; cf. 
also Isaiah 45 9 , 64 8 .) 

God's wonderful love and regard for man's personality 
is nowhere more apparent than in the fact that, in spite of 
our obvious obligations to him, he has granted to every one of 
us absolute liberty to accept or reject his service. In some 
cases perhaps the term "enlistment" is better than "surren- 
der." Paul uses the phrase "adoption as sons" (Gal. 4 5 ). A 
man like Jesus, who had not previously been in the service 
of Mammon, "surrenders" himself when he enters God's 
service in the same sense in which a soldier voluntarily "sur- 
renders" or "consecrates" his all to the nation when he 
enlists; or as husband and wife "surrender" or "devote" or 
"present" themselves to each other in the marriage vow 
(Rom. 6 13 ). 

If however a man has been in the enemy's service before 
he enters the service of God — this was the case with Paul 
(Gal. 1 13 ; Acts 22 6 ' 10 ) and is probably the case with most 
of us — he needs in a more truly literal sense to surrender 
himself and take an oath of allegiance to the new ruler before 



56 THE WILL OF GOD 

he can be counted as a loyal subject in the free service of 
God (Rom. 5 10 , 6 16 - 28 ). 

It is obvious that man must be in the service of either 
God or Mammon. Does the service of Mammon — by which 
Jesus must mean the alternatives to doing God's will as a 
life purpose — offer more freedom and liberty than that of 
God? (Rom, 6 16 .) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 



Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

SECOND DAY 

The Service of Mammon — Three Possible Aspects 
Matt. 4 1 - u ; Luke 14 16 - 20 ; I John 2 16 . 

"Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." By "Mammon" 
Jesus must mean whatever other possible alternatives offer 
themselves as life purposes outside of complete surrender to the 
will of God. The service of Mammon has at least three 
different aspects. Jesus faced and rejected all three in the 
temptation and afterwards discussed the same three in the 
parable of the rejected invitations.* If a man refuses to live 
the life surrendered to the will of God he has three other 
possible alternatives, to the bondage (Rom. 6 16 ; II Tim. 
2 26 ; John 8 34 ; II Peter 2 19 ) of one or the other of which he 
may devote his life — (1) the life surrendered to self-indul- 
gence; (2) the life surrendered to wealth-getting; (3) the life 
surrendered to fame-seeking, f 



*In this parable the owner of the oxen is seeking fame rather than wealth. It 
is the number — five yoke — on which he lays emphasis. 

tit is an interesting confirmation of the depth and soundness of Jesus' obser- 
vations regarding human nature that these alternatives of his parable were the 
identical three presented to Paris by the Goddesses Aphrodite, Athena and Hera in 
the old Greek myth connected with the Trojan war. Aphrodite offered self-indul- 
gence, Athena fame in war, Hera the wealth of empire. 



5S 

Study VL The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a life Purpose 

THIRD DAY 

The Liie Surrendered to Self-:: 



Rom. 8 M ; Matt, i 2 - 3 - 4 ; Luke 14 «•. 

Read also carefully Matt. 24 4M1 ; Luke 17 ""*, 21 "*. 

Many men who possess the capacity to attain neither 
fame nor wealth and others who, though possessing the 
capacity, are not attracted by these things, surrender their 
lives to some form of self-indulgence. Let us begin with 
one of the commonest which although not generally regarded 
as such Jesus recognised (Matt. 4 4 ) and often warned men 
against. Every one can recall individuals who are so tied 
to their three good meals a day that they make themselves 
and everyone else miserable the moment their habits are 
broken into by circumstances*' QGriggs, Moral Education, 
page 150). Of such Paul speaks when he mentions 
those "whose God is their belly" (Rom. l6 18 ; PhiL 3 *■). 
A man may be a slave to self-indulgence in any one of many 
other forms — sleep, drinking, smoking, gambling, the theatre, 
sport, dress, or, as was the case in the parable of the re j ected 
invitations, in subtler forms which concern domestic life. 

Mark Antony might have been the ruler of the world 
had he not surrendered himself to self-indulgence. Surely 
there is no more pitiable sight than a man created by God to 
be a master who is a slave of habit. How free Jesus was 
from slavery to any form of appetite or artificial 
stimulant (Mark 15 23 ; John 4 * 1 " 34 ) and yet how calm and 
effective was his life without it! (Mark 1 32 ' 35 , 4 35 " 41 .) Paul 
learned from Jesus the true place of self-indulgence (I C 
6", 8 8 , 9* 1 ; Rom. 13 U14 , 14 1T ; CoL 2 2 ^ 23 ). 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 59 



Study VI, The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

FOURTH DAY 

The Life Surrendered to Wealth- getting 

Matt. 4 8 " 10 ; Luke 14 18 . 

Read also carefully I Tim. 6 7 " 10 ' 17 ; Mark 10 17 " 31 ; Matt. 
6 19 " 21 , 19 16 " 22 ; Luke 12 13 " 21 ; James 5 x - 6 . 

Though free from the slavery of self-indulgence a man 
is often tempted to yield his life to selfish acquisition. He 
buys a field and he must needs go and see it, no matter what 
are the calls of home or of citizenship or of church. He 
makes the exchange, which Jesus refused, of a surrender of 
principle for all the kingdoms of the world. The slavery of 
such a life, whether it concerns itself with the amassing of 
money and of property, or of other forms of wealth, such as 
learning and culture, needs no special demonstration. The 
city and the university furnish plenty of examples of learn- 
ing-hoarding as well as money-hoarding misers. Are riches 
essential to, and productive of, happiness? (Matt. 19 22 ; 
Phil. 4 u .) Do they enslave or free their possessor? (Rev. 
S 17 ' 18 f ) 



60 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

FIFTH DAY 

The Life Surrendered to Fame-seeking 

Matt. 4 3T ; Luke 14 19 . 

Read also carefully Mark 9 33_3 % 10 35 " 45 ; Luke 22 24 - 2 «; 
John 5 44 , 12 43 . 

Milton characterizes the desire to attain fame as "that 
last infirmity of noble minds. " It masters men who are slaves 
neither to self-indulgence nor to the passion for wealth. It 
is perhaps the subtlest of all the three alternatives to doing 
God's will as a life purpose. Many a religious worker who 
has completely mastered his passions and appetites, and is 
willing to work for a mere pittance, falls a victim to the 
ambition for leadership in his special field of work. To 
receive the applause of men, to see one's name in the news- 
paper, to be known as the possessor not of one but of five 
yoke of oxen, these are the enslaving life purposes of many 
men. 

DeTocqueville says of Napoleon that he attained to the 
greatest height that any man ever can attain without virtue. 
Napoleon's sole ideal was his own fame. What might 
not his genius have accomplished for the world, had it not 
been enslaved to fame-seeking? Note how free Jesus was 
from the craving for notoriety (Phil. 2 1_11 ; Mark 7 3< *; 
Luke 5 14 " 16 ; John 6 15 ) and yet how truly a leader among 
men. Who was the slave and who was the master as we study 
the careers of Napoleon and Jesus? 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 61 



Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

SIXTH DAY 

Pleasure, Wealth and Fame are not Wrong in Themselves, but They 
must be Our Servants not Our Masters 

I Cor. 6 12 ; Matt. 6 21 > 33 . 

Read also carefully II Cor. 9 8 " 15 ; Mark 4 19 , 10 29 * 30 ; 
Matt. 19 28 ; Luke 18 28 " 30 ; [Psalm 1 4 ]. 

"Seek ye first his kingdom and his righteousness 
and all these things shall be added unto you." In this verse 
Jesus is speaking of the temporal pleasures of life. Only 
the life surrendered to God which seeks first his kingdom 
is the free and happy life (see a fine passage on the joy fulness 
of Jesus in Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
page 47 ff). 

When a man surrenders his life to any one of the three 
alternatives he becomes a slave; but when he surrenders to 
God we have the resulting paradox that by the act he becomes 
absolutely free and a master of pleasure, wealth and fame; 
because God is love, and love is freedom (Rom. 8 14 " 17 , I John 
4 18 ), 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VI. The Alternatives to Doing God's Will as a Life Purpose 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Does Matt. 6: 33 hold out a selfish motive for the 
service of God? Should we serve to obtain a reward? (Cf. 
James 4 10 ; Heb. 11 6 " 26 ; I Peter 3 9 > 10 " 12 .) 

2. Should godliness ever be allowed to be a way of gain? 
(I Tim. 6 5 ; cf. Mark 9 35 , 10 28 " 31 .) 

3. In how far is it true that the good are prosperous ? 

4. "Be good and you will be great." Is this true? 

5. What do Jesus and the Apostles mean by the terms 
wealth and riches? 



STUDY VII 

The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of Surrender of Self 
— Its Symptoms and its Course 

"And straightway the Spirit driveth him forth into the wilder- 
ness. And he was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan." 

—Mark 1:12,13. 

"The gospel of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man 
entereth violently into it." ■ — Luke 16:16. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

"Cases" of this Spiritual Crisis 

Jesus Christ. Matt. 3:13 — 1:11. 

The Rich Young Ruler. Luke 18: 18-23. 

Paul, Gal. 1:13-17; Acts 26:1-19. 

Bushnell, Horace. Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell 
{Cheney), pages 53-60. 

Robertson, F. W. Life and Letters of F. \V. Robertson 
(Brooke), Vol. I., pages 109 and 110. 

(N. B. There are several editions of this book and the pages do 
not agree. The passage in question is in the account of his wander- 
ings in the Tyrol.) 

Kingsley, Charles. His Letters and Memories of His Life 
(Mrs. Kingsley), chapter III. 

Beaver, Hugh. A Memorial of a True Life (Speer), pages 136, 
137. 

Brooks, Phillips. Life of Phillips Brooks (Allen), pages 89, 
90, 96, 97, 120, 121, 140. 

Drummond, Henry. The last four chapters of the "Ideal Life" 
are his own experiences told impersonally. See G. A. Smith's Life for 
the proof of this. 

Little, Frances. The Lady of the Decoration. 

In selecting the above cases from the large number which history 
and literature afford, I have chosen what might be termed "pure" 
cases. I have purposely avoided two classes: (1) Those in which this 
spiritual crisis which accompanies the act of complete self-surrender 
to God is closely connected with a break from positive sin (cf. 
Augustine, Bunyan, and numerous instances cited in the discussions 
of Starbuck, Coe and James) ; and (2) those in which it is associated 
with a decision to enter Foreign Missionary Service (which would 
include practically the whole range of missionary biography). 

I have done this deliberately, in an attempt to demonstrate that 
a personal, conscious surrender of self to God, — involving beforehand 
a frank consideration and recognition of certain temporary ad- 
vantages which self-indulgence, self-seeking and money-amassing 
have to offer but culminating in their deliberate renunciation in the 
face of these advantages, — is the normal preparation of all lives of 
power. I would not do injustice to gradual consecration, but would 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 65 

raise the question whether there is not a positive loss to the world if 
a man allows his decision as to his attitude toward these matters 
to hang fire for many years. This decision as to attitude — one's 
working basis for life — is an entirely distinct thing from breaking 
with sins which have once fastened themselves upon one. Jesus had 
no cataclysmic break with sin; but he had a cataclysmic decision in 
regard to his attitude toward it. A sudden break with sin should 
be the abnormal thing; men ought to be born into, and grow into 
righteousness. But I fail to see how most human freewill agents 
can lay their life plans with two possibilities before them, reject 
the alluring alternative, and definitely enlist the forces of righteous- 
ness on their side, without being aware of it. If a man thinks he 
has already arrived at this state of absolute surrender of self 
to God's will by what he terms the process of gradual consecration 
why should he then object to sealing it with a definite, personal 
compact? Was not that precisely the trouble with the rich young 
ruler? 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VII. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 

Surrender of Self 

FIRST DAY 

The Facing of the Problem of Seli-surrender — to do God's Will with- 
out Reservation — the Great Soul Crisis in most Lives of Spiritual 
Power 

Matt. 4 \ 

u Once to every man and nation 
Comes the moment to decide 
In the strife of truth with falsehood, 
For the good or evil side." 

Ldwkix: The Present Cruis. 

Wherever we have the complete biography of the great 
ian civilization^ we find that most of their 
:ed resemblance in the steps of the spiritual 
rich they passed before entering upon their 

Bf^::::::-^ *~::.: Jesus :.::£ P.v.J :.::£ ::.\ss::;^ 
centuries we find the same successive stages 
in each case as to establish a general law of 

seLf-surrenier. In;.s:u.\::h .\s T ^;> ""en: 
crisis in all its aspects at the beginning of 

1 safely assume that not only the rebellious 

nen who would attain to a life of spiritual 
a similar struggle; for as Pascal said, "It 

y Christian to have those things happen to 

ned to our Lord Jesus Curis:." Whether, 
uu ' uuier :: G: i. :e" 

r. ::■.:: eru.iec: :■: r = :^pe this experience. 



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A MAN'S LIFEWORK 67 



Study VII. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

SECOND DAY 

The Decision is Preceded by a Period of Lonely Struggle and 
Uncertainty 

Matt. 4 1 ' 2 ; Gal. 1 15 ' 17 . 

Jesus: "In the wilderness" (Luke 4 1 ; Matt. 4 1 ; Mark 
1 12 ) "fasted forty days and forty nights." 

Paul: "Straightway I communed not with flesh and 
blood .... but I went away into Arabia" (Gal. 1 16 ' 17 ). 

Charles Kingsley : "I have been for the last hour on the 
seashore not dreaming but thinking deeply and strongly." 
Horace Bushnell: Loneliness (see Life,, pp. 53-60). 
F. W. Robertson: Loneliness (see Life, pp. 109, 110). 
Hugh Beaver: (See Life, pages 136, 137). 
Frances Little: The Lady of the Decoration, pp. 209-211. 
Macdonald: Robert Falconer, Chap, LL, "In the Desert." 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VII. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

THIRD DAY 

The Various Alternatives to Doing God's Will Present Themselves 
with Unwonted Attractiveness and There is Often a Feeling of 
Great Repulsion and Obstinacy toward Everything Christian 

Matt. 4 3 ' 5 > 8 > 9 ; Acts 26 9 ; Rom. 7 15 " 25 , 9 20 ' 21 . 

Jesus: "Being tempted of the devil" (Matt. 4 1 ). 

Paul: "1 persecuted the church of God and made havoc 
of it." Gal. 1 13 ' 14 . (Paul has left no detailed record of his 
soul struggle during the lonely period in Arabia. Perhaps 
Titus 3 3 is an echo of it.) 

Horace Bushnell: Fascination for law (see Life). 
F. W. Robertson: Repugnance for theology (see Life) ; 
so also Phillips Brooks. 

"I fit into this life out here like a square peg in a round 
hole. I am not consecrated, I was never called to the foreign 
field, I love the world and the flesh even if I don't care 
especially for the devil, I don't believe the Lord makes the 
cook steal so I may be more patient, and I don't pray for 
wisdom in selecting a new pair of shoes." 

Frances Little: The Lady of the Decoration, page 1J/.7. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 69 



Study VII. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

FOURTH DAY 

The Final Act of Surrender or Enlistment is a Definite Conscious Act 
of Ethical Decision Between the Man and God Personally, Made 
without Reservation, in the Path, not of Inclination but of Duty; 
and is Generally Preceded by the Darkest Moments of Doubt, 
Obstinacy, and Fascination for the Other Life 

Matt. 4 10 (cf. vs. 8, 9, and Luke 12 57 ). 

Jesus: "Get thee hence, Satan" (fascination recognized, 
cf. Matt. 16 23 ); "the Lord and him only" — without reserva- 
tion; "thou shalt serve" — the path of duty. 

Paul: "What shall I do, Lord?" Acts 22 10 . 

Horace Bushnell in the privacy of his college room. 

John Wesley: "I resolved to devote all my life to God — 
all my thoughts, words and actions." 

F. TV. Robertson in the Tyrol. 

Phillips Brooks at Alexandria Seminary. 

Frances Little: The Lady of the Decoration, pp. 209- 
211. 

It should be noted that this decision must be made per- 
sonally. Jesus refused to let a third person intervene and tell 
him what God's will was (Matt. 4 7 ). So later, in the deter- 
mining as to what God's will was in a specific case, Jesus re- 
fuses to let Peter intervene (Matt. 16 22 ' 23 ). Paul refused to 
let the brethren decide for him (Acts 21 11 " 14 ) and taught inde- 
pendence (Phil. 2 12 ). Jesus' last rebuke was for this same 
reason (John 21 21 ' 22 ), 



70 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study VH. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

FIFTH DAY 

The Results of this Decisive Act are not Immediately Apparent 
although the Act of Decision Brings Peace and the Feeling of 
Revulsion Against Religion Begins to Fade Away 

Col. 1 » 

Matt. 4 u ; Luke 8 15 , 21 19 , 24 49 . 



Acts 26 15 ' 16 ' 19 ' 20 - 29 ; James 5 ' \ 

Heb. 11 13 ; I Peter 1 6_T ! 
Rev. 2 s . 

Note that the result in Jesus' case was not immediate 
peace, immediate certainty, and complete victory. The doubts 
and fascination of the other life are not completely swept 
away but return (Luke 4 1B , for a season. Cf. also Luke 22 2S , 
"Ye are they that have continued with me in my tempta- 
tions"). But by the great decision their force has been 
broken. This decision often brings with it victory over some 
sin which had not before been overcome. 

Matt. 4 1X , "angels" — "the joy of the uncommitted sin." 

"It is true that this was not realized at once. It grew 
with the natural growth of years. The doubts were not yet 
all gone. The whole history of these struggling years can- 
not be better rendered than in these words of Tennyson* 
loved for their very familiarity: — 

■ i Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
At last he beat his music out. 
There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

u ■ He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them; thus he came at length 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 71 

" ■ To find a stronger faith his own ; 

And power was with. him in the night 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 
And dwells not in the light alone.' " 

"His manner of dealing with mental questions, as he de- 
scribes it, seems the most sincere and reasonable one 
possible : — 

" 'Never be in a hurry to believe ; never try to conquer 
doubts against time. Time is one of the grand elements in 
thought as truly as in motion. If you cannot open a doubt 
today keep it till tomorrow; do not be afraid to keep it for 
whole years. One of the greatest talents in religious dis- 
covery is the finding how to hang up questions ; and let them 
hang, without being at all anxious about them. Turn a 
free glance on them now and then as they hang; move freely 
about them, and see them first on one side and then on 
another, and by and by when you turn some corner of thought 
you will be delighted and astonished to see how quietly and 
easily they open their secret and let you in. What seemed 
perfectly insoluble will clear itself in a wondrous revelation. 
It will not hurt you, nor hurt the truth, if you should have 
some few questions left to be carried on with you when you 
go hence, for in that more luminous state, most likely they 
will soon be cleared, only a thousand others will be springing 
up even there, and you will go on dissolving still your new 
sets of questions, and growing mightier and more deep-seeing 
for eternal ages/ " 

Cheney: Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, pages 
59, 60. 

"Entire satisfaction to the intellect is unattainable about 
any of the greater problems, and if you try to get to the bot- 
tom of them by argument, there is no bottom there; and there- 
fore you make the matter worse .... the moment you cut 
off one, a hundred other heads will grow in its place. It 
would be a pity if all these problems could be solved. The 
j oy of the intellectual life would be largely gone. I would not 
rob a man of his problems nor would I have another man rob 



n THE WILL OF GOD 

me of my problems. They are the delight of life, and the 
whole intellectual world would be stale and unprofitable if 
we, knew everything/' 

Drummoxd: Dealing with Doubt. 

"Another frequent mistake to be carefully avoided is 
that, while you surrender and renounce all thought of making 
up a plan or choosing out a plan for yourself, as one that you 
had set by your own will, you also give up the hope or ex- 
pectation that God will set you in any scheme of life where 
the whole course of it will be known or set down beforehand. 
If you go to him to be guided, he will guide you, but he will 
not comfort your distrust or half-trust of him by showing 
you his chart of all his purposes concerning you. He will only 
show you into a way where, if you go cheerfully and trustfully 
forward, he will show you on still further. No contract will 
be made with you, save that he engages, if you trust him, to 
lead you into the best things all the way through. And if 
they are better than you can either ask or think beforehand, 
they will be none the worse for that." 

Bushxell: The Xerv Life, page 21. 

See Grenfell: A Man's Faith, pages 11-lJf. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 73 

Study VH. The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

SIXTH DAY 

A Man's own Individuality and Personality is not Lost by thus 
Conforming to the Divine Will but on the Contrary it is Marvel- 
ously Intensified 

Gal. 4 5 " 7 ; I Cor. S 6 ; John 8 32 ' 36 , 15 2 > 5 ; I John .2 5 . 

Jesus, who was perfectly obedient, had the most unique 
and individual personality that the world has ever seen. 

"However irregular the forms of this conversion accord- 
ing to some theological standards, there can be no doubt 
as to its reality as a conversion in the original sense of that 
word. It was a complete turning about of the life. It 
changed not only the outward purpose (for he [Horace 
Bushnell] gave up the law for the gospel), but the very fibre 
and tissues of his being. No, it did not change, but, rather, 
breathed into his mortal frame the breath of an immortal life 
and vigor, vitalized and inspired his intellect, gave luminous 
insight in place of 'desolating doubts' and set him free. The 
effect was not to neutralize but to heighten his individuality. 
If he was before Horace Bushnell, he was doubly Bushnell 
now. No salient point, no rugged, racy trait, was lost. He 
seemed, indeed, now first to have found himself " 

Cheney: Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, pages 
59, 60. 

Note the originality of the man who lives the surrendered 
life. 

"The other-worldliness of such a character is the thing 
that strikes you; you are not prepared for what it will do 
or say or become next, for it moves from a far-off centre 
and in spite of its transparency and sweetness that presence 
fills you always with awe. A man never feels the discord 
of his own life, never hears the jar of the machinery by 



74 THE WILL OF GOD 

which he tries to manufacture his own good points till he has 
stood in the stillness of such a presence. Then he discerns 
the difference between growth and work." 

Drummond: Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 
pages lSJj., 135 (Potts Edition). 

"Now the ideal man has no deeper prayer than that. 
He wants to get into the great current of will which flows 
silently out of Eternity and swiftly back into Eternity again. 
His only chance of happiness, of usefulness, of work is to 
join the living rill of his will to that. Other Christians miss 
it or settle on the bank of the great stream; but he will be 
among the forces and energies and powers, that he may link 
his weakness with God's greatness and his simplicity with 
God's majesty, that he may become a force, an energy, a 
power for duty and God. Perhaps God may do something 
with him. Certainly God will do something with him — for 
it is God who worketh in him both to will and to do of his 

good pleasure You give everything to God. God 

gives it all back again and more. You present your body a 
living sacrifice that you may prove God's will. You shall 
prove it by getting back your body — a glorified body." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life. 

"Xor is it any detraction from such a kind of life that 
the helm of its guidance is, by the supposition, to be in God 
and not in our own will and wisdom. This, in fact, is its 

dignity How different, how inspiring and magnificent, 

instead, to live by holy consent, a life all discovery; to see it 
unfolding, moment by moment, a plan of God, our own life- 
plan conceived in his paternal love; each event, incident, 
experience, whether bright or dark, having its mission from 
him and revealing, either now or in its future issues, the 
magnificence of his favoring counsel; to be sure, in the dark 
day, of a light that will follow, that loss will terminate in 
gain, that trial will issue in rest, doubt in satisfaction, suffer- 
ing in patience, patience in purity, and all in a consummation 
of greatness and dignity that even God will look on with a 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 75 

smile ! How magnificent, how strong in its repose, how full 

of rest is such a kind of life God will lead every man 

into a singular, original and peculiar life, without any study 
of singularity on his part." 

Bushnell: The New Life, page 47 ff. 



76 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VIL The Spiritual Crisis Involved in Facing the Issue of 
Surrender of Self 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. If most great leaders have this soul struggle is 
there such a thing as the unconscious doing of God's will? 

2. For example^ in how far can the following men be 
said to have been doing the will of God: Socrates? (Cf. Matt. 
IS 17 .) Augustus? (Cf. Luke 2 1 " 5 .) Napoleon? (Cf. Isaiah 
44 24 ~ 28 , 45 1_7 , especially vs. 5 and 7.) Judas? 

3. Why the preliminary period of loneliness? 

4. Can a Christian's soul life be right if he is afraid to 
listen to a missionary talk or read a missionary biography? 

5. Was the old idea of hereditary trades right? 

6. What is the meaning of the descent of the Holy 
Spirit? (Acts 2 1_4 .) Is it coincident with or a subsequent 
issue of self-surrender? May it be long delayed? (Luke 
24 49 .) 



study vin 

To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is an Achievement 
Possible for Any Man 

"But unto each one of us was the grace given according to the 
measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he as- 
cended on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men 
.... till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowl- 
edge of the Son of God, .... unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ." — Eph. 4 : 7, 8, 13. 

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear ray 
voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with me." —Rev. 3:20. 

"If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, 
whether it is of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John 7:17. 

"Have ye not read even this scripture; The stone which the 
builders rejected, the same was made the head of the corner." 

■—Mark 12:10. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Drummond. Stones Rolled Away. "To the Man Who is Down." 
Richards. God's Choice of Men. Chapter V.— "A Call for All." 
Shaler. The Masters of Fate. 

Wright. A Life with a Purpose. Chapter I. — ''The Miracle of 
Obedience." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 79 



Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

FIRST DAY 

The Execution of God's Great Plan Requires the Most Brilliant Powers 
of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul of Which Man is Capable 

I Cor. 14 20 ; Matt. 10 16 , 22 1W ^ 46 . 

The founder of Christianity stands unmatched among the 
great men of history in the even balance of his physical, in- 
tellectual, social and spiritual powers. We have no record 
of illness in Jesus' life. He was never outwitted in an intel- 
lectual encounter. No call upon his friendship ever went un- 
answered. What he exemplified in himself he set as the ideal 
of his followers. They were to serve God with the full powers 
of body, mind, heart and soul. Waste, undeveloped possi- 
bilities, misused opportunities, received from him the most 
severe condemnation. He was constantly teaching that the 
kingdom of God demanded the best that men could give. 



SO THZ WILL OF GOD 



Study Vm 7; Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

SECOND DAY 

Yet this Task Has Never Been Reserved for Those Alone Whom the 
World Regards as Specially Gifted 

I Cor. 1 *"», 12 *■•; II Cor. 8 "■ 12 ; Col. 1 2S ; Matt. 11 



La direct contrast to this stem demand of Jesus is his 
constant practice of enlisting the frailest and most unpromis- 
ing lives for his great undertaking. 

"When one thinks of the enterprise to be committed to 
their hands, and considers the low estate of the Twelve, his 

feeling is amazement and disappointment Were there 

no men of standing and education, who had enough faith in 
Jesus and enough devotion to religion to undertake this nigh 
office ' . Why should he not have called Nicodemus .... 

that high-minded and ingenuous young ruler .... and that 
scholar .... Jairus .... Joseph of Arimathea 
the nobleman of Cana .... Manaen .... the 
of Galilee whom Jesus used as father in the Parable 
of the Prodigal Son .... Gamaliel .... Saul .... the 
host of the 'upper room* and that gentle soul Lazarus ? So the 
Master would have had twelve apostles whom the nation would 
have trusted, and whom the council would not have flouted." 
Watson: The Life of the Master, pages 190, 191. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 81 



Study VIII To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

THIRD DAY 

God Enlists and Uses Mightily for the Execution of His Plan Those 
Who are Frail in Body and Mind 

I Cor. 12 22 ; II Cor. 13 4 f ; Rom. 4 17 ; Matt. 11 25 " 29 . 
Luke 14 13 ; Heb. 12 12 > 13 . 

Study carefully the Scripture references for today's les- 
son. With what physical drawbacks did Paul have to con- 
tend? (II Cor. 12 7 ' 8 .) Read during this week, if possible, 
the biography of some of the world's "masters of fate in the 
physical realm ,, — David Brainerd, R. L. Stevenson, Francis 
Parkman, Henry Martyn, William Johnson of Liberia, Helen 
Keller or others. 

For a wonderful instance of God's mighty use of the 
frail-minded see Sutter, A Colony of Mercy, which tells the 
story of Pastor von Bodelschwingh's work with this class in 
Germany. 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

FOURTH DAY 

God has a Place in His Plan for the Timid and Unpopular as Well as 
for Those Whom the World Has Rejected Because of Misfortune 
or Sin 



Rom. 5 6 , 9 25 ' 26 (cf . Hosea 1 10 > 2 23 ) ; I Tim. 1 



12-16. 



Mark 2 17 , 12 10 ' ". 

Matt. 9 13 , 10 6 , 11 28 ' 29 , 18 12 " 14 , 20 6 ' 7 , 21 16 . 

Luke 1 48 ' 52 , 3 5 , 6 35 (margin), 9 49 ' B0 , 15 (entire chap- 
ter). 

" Heb. 11 32 - 40 (esp. v. 34) ; I Peter 2 4 ; John 6 37 . 

A far more difficult problem than that of the physically 
frail or the weak-minded in any community is that of the out- 
cast — both the self -ostracised, the timid and sensitive, and the 
social outcast, the breaker of moral or civil law. Jesus not 
only welcomes all such men into the circle of his followers, 
but his life was given to them. He was the friend of publi- 
cans and sinners. He came not to call the righteous but 
sinners. From such men the mightiest instruments for good in 
his kingdom have been made. In connection with this day's 
study consult the biography of Jerry McAuley and S. H. 
Hadley's "Down in Water Street." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 83 

Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

FIFTH DAY 

Regeneration and Transformation Come into a Human Life Giving it 
Sufficient Power for its Tasks, no Matter how Frail and Weak 
it May Have Been, when that Life has Willed to Know and to Do 
the Exact Work for which God had Intended it 

I Cor. 1 30 ; Rom. 11 23 , 14 4 ; Eph. 1 19 , 2 *- 10 , 4 13 . 
Mark 4 8 > 20 , 6 2 ' 3 , 10 27 ;~Matt. 21 42 ; Luke 5 30 " 32 , 19 10 . 
Heb. 7 25 ; I Peter F 23 ^ 

Jesus brings to the world a message of hope. No man 
has fallen beyond possibility of regeneration. The simple 
question is whether or not the individual is willing to be 
transformed and will pay the price of complete surrender to 
God's transforming power. What is that price? 

"If any man .... takes this seriously and means busi- 
ness; if he means for the future not to keep up the sham fight 
that he has been pretending to wage and means to get to the 
bottom of things, let me ask him for a few days from this 
time to treat himself as a man who has been very ill and 
dare not do anything. Let him consider himself as a conval- 
escent for a few weeks and take care where he goes, what he 
reads, what he looks at, and the people he speaks to. He is 
not strong enough for the outer air. When he first begins the 
new life he is young and tender. Therefore let him beware 
of the first few days. Mortality is greatest among children 
for the first few hours; then it is greater for the first few 
days; then it is great for the next few months and lessens as 
the children grow older. If you are careful not to catch cold 
for the first few weeks after you begin to lead a new life, you 
will succeed; but if you do tomorrow what you did today, 
you will go wrong, because ydu are not strong enough to resist. 
You will have to build up this new body, cell by cell, day by 
day, just as the old body of temptation has been built up. If 
any man .... knows any other man w^ho is in that conval- 



84. THE WILL OF GOD 

escent condition, let him take care, and neither by jest or 
word, or temptation, throw that man back. Stand by him if 
you know such a man. If you are such a man, do not be 
ashamed to get somebody else to back you and go along with 
you. Very few men can live a solitary Christian life. You 
will find it a great source of strength to get another man's life 
wound about you. You can help each other/ ' 

Drummond: Stones Rolled Away, pages 73, 74- 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 85 

Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

SIXTH DAY 

The Miracle of Obedience 

I Cor. 2 9 ; II Cor. 5 17 ; Rom. 6 4 ; Eph. 3 20 ; Phil. 3 20 ' 21 ; 
Luke 2 1 14 ' 15 ; I Peter 1 23 . 
John 3 3 , 5 20 , 14 12 . 

See Brummond, The Ascent of Man, Chapter X. — "In- 
volution/ ' 

"Is there then a mighty, miraculous law of God, under- 
lying the life of men, the processes of which may be observed, 
a law whereby weak men are made strong, whereby the ordi- 
nary man can become extraordinary, a law which no man can 
create or master but a law of which any man may avail him- 
self if he will? Are the phrases which were so constantly on 
Paul's lips, 'Him that enabled me/ 'The strength which God 
supplieth/ 'Newness of life,' 'My God shall fulfil every need,' 
'I can do all things through him/ 'His working which work- 
eth in me mightily' mere empty phrases of rhetoric, or are 
they the genuine witnesses to a mysterious power which had 
made of Paul a new creature? When such a thought first 
dawns upon one its possibilities are well-nigh overwhelming. 
President Jordan tells us that one half of the nominal strength 
of the young men of America is today wasted in dissipation, 

gross or petty But what of the fourfold or the tenfold 

strength which God intended to supply to men which they have 
never claimed, and which, after all, was really their normal 
strength in God's thought for their life?" 

A Life with a Purpose, page 19. 



86 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study VIII. To Find Out and to Do God's Will for One's Life is 
an Achievement Possible for Any Man 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. If Jesus will accept all classes of men why are there 
so many outcasts in the world today? 

2. With what different kinds of criminals did Jesus have 
dealings ? 

3. Against what class of men were his fiercest denuncia- 
tions hurled? 

4. What was the object of these denunciations? 



STUDY IX 

God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade or Profession, 
Either at Home or Abroad 

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole 
creation." — Mark 16:15. 

"The hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusa- 
lem, shall ye worship the Father." — John 4:21. 

"The kingdom of God is in the midst of you." 

— Luke 17:21 (margin). 

"Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called. 
Brethren, let each man, wherein he was called, therein abide with 
God." —I Cor. 7:20,24. 

"If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the 
whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God 
set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased 
him." — / Cor. 12 : 17, 18. 

"Wherefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, 
to be well pleasing unto him. For we must all be made manifest 
before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the 
things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether 
it be good or bad." — // Cor. 5:9,10. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Mathews, Shailer. "The Christian Church and Social Unity." 
American Jourxal or Sociology, January, 1900, pages 456-469. 

Hepworth. Hiram Golfs Religion or the "Shoemaker by the 
Grace of God." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 



Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

FIRST DAY 

Jesus and the Apostles Laymen, not Members of the Professional 
Clergy 

Matt. 13 54 ~ 56 ; John 7 15 (Jesus). 

1 Thess. 2 9 ; II Thess. 3 8 " 12 ; I Cor. 4 12 , 9 *-"; II Cor. 
11 \ 12 13 ; Acts 18 1 " 4 , 20 33 " 35 (Paul). 
I Thess. 4 11 ' 12 ; I Peter 4 10 . 

When we compare the religious leaders of the first 
century with those of the twentieth we notice one striking 
difference. The leaders of the first century did not regard 
religious work as a regular paid profession. Jesus received 
no money in payment for his work as an evangelist. He was 
known not as a professional clergyman but as "the carpenter" 
(Mark 6 1_6 ). Paul expressly states (see eight references 
cited above) that he took no remuneration for his ministry 
although it would have been right to have done so, but that 
he supported himself entirely by his trade, which we know was 
that of tentmaking (Acts 18 1_4 ). In the early church it was 
taken for granted that a Christian should have his regular 
trade (II Thess. 3 X1 > 12 ) ; the extent of his ministry in the 
church and its nature was to be regulated by the gifts which he 
possessed (I Peter 4 10 ). 

Jesus and the Apostles, then, were laymen, not members 
of the professional clergy. Jesus' ministry was one, not 
primarily through the channel of the synagogue and the 
established clergy, but rather through that of the field, the 
hillside, the marketplace and the layman. 



90 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

SECOND DAY 

No Honorable Profession or Trade Secular in God's Plan. All Must 
be Ministries 

I Cor. 7 20 > 2 ^ 10 31 , 12> u , 12 31 ; II Cor. 5 10 ; Rom. 
12 6 " 8 , 16 23 . 

Col. 3 17 , 4 14 ; Eph. 4 ^j I Tim. 4 4 > 5 ; Titus 3 13 . 
Matt. 9 9_13 ; Luke 3 10 " 14 , 5 ■- 11 ; John 21 1 " 6 . 

Jesus emphasized a great truth which had so far made but 
little impression upon men — that the professions and trades 
of men should not be divided into two hostile camps — the 
religious and the secular; but that every honorable occupation 
should be a Christian ministry. John the Baptist had grasped 
this idea when he advised the tax collectors and soldiers who 
came to him in repentance not to renounce their callings but 
to make these latter ministries to men by the example of 
honorable living in them. James, John, Peter and Andrew 
had been fishers before Jesus called them; they returned to 
theii trade afterwards. (John 21 1 " 6 .) Matthew, it is true, 
left his old occupation, probably because he did not trust him- 
self to continue in it ; we are certainly to suppose that he took 
up some new occupation for his support. In Paul's circle of 
associates were a physician, a lawyer and a city treasurer 
(see verses cited above). Jesus nowhere more clearly em- 
phasizes this truth of the lay ^ministry than in Luke 8 38 ' 39 . 

"Though we may never be famous or powerful or called 
to heroic suffering or acts of self-denial which will vibrate 
through history .... though we are neither intended to be 
apostles, nor missionaries, nor martyrs, but to be common 
people living in common houses, spending the day in common 
offices or common kitchens ; yet doing the will of God there, we 
shall do as much as apostle or missionary or martyr, seeing 
that they can do no more than do God's will where they are, 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 91 

even so we can do as much where we are — and answer the 
end of our life as truly, faithfully, triumphantly as they." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, page 264. 

"You are never to complain of your birth, your training, 
your employments, your hardships, never to fancy that you 
could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere 

assigned you Hence it was that an apostle required 

his converts to abide, each one in that calling wherein he 
was called; to fill his place till he opens a way, by filling it, 
to some other: the bondman to fill his house of bondage with 
love and duty, the laborer to labor, the woman to be a woman, 
the men to show themselves men— all to acknowledge God's 
hand in their lot, and seek to cooperate with that good design 
which he most assuredly cherishes for them." 

Bushnell; The New Life, pages 19, 20. 



92 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study IX* God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

THIRD DAY 

The Professional Clergyman Necessitated by the Need of Expert 
Leadership among the Laymen Who without Such Stimulus 
Were Either Unable or Unwilling to Grasp the Idea of Their 
Responsibility 

I Tim. 4 1 " 16 . 

Whence, then, in this ministry of laymen arose the 
necessity for the professional clergyman who receives a 
regular salary for his work? The rightful place of the 
church and of the professional clergyman Jesus recognized 
in his day (see Speer, Principles of Jesus, "Jesus and the 
Church of God") ; and he explicitly teaches that a Christian 
minister may receive salary for his services (Matt. 10 10 ). 

Was not the professional clergyman in the Christian 
church called into being by the need of expert leadership felt 
among the laymen ? So long as Jesus was on earth he supplied 
this need. After an interval Paul served without pay as in- 
spirer and instructor of the disciples. But as the greatest 
of the Apostles approaches the end of his life he sees clearly 
the necessity for a successor who can give more time to the 
organization and leadership of the fast growing church than 
has been required in the past. In the 4th chapter of First 
Timothy we have the story of 'Paul's selection and instruction 
of one such leader. The laymen have been either unwilling or 
unable to grasp the conception of their trades as ministries. 
Some have fallen away. Practical efficiency in the church 
requires another leader. Timothy is henceforth to give him- 
self wholly (I Tim. 4 15 ) to the instruction of others (mainly 
by that most potent of all methods of instruction — his own 
example, I Tim. 4 12 ). It is noteworthy that in neither 
of the letters to Timothy does Paul make reference to the 
fact that he received no pay for his religious work, but he 
expressly directs that henceforth compensation is to be paid 
for genuine expert leadership (I Tim. 5 17 ' 1S ). 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 93 

Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

FOURTH DAY 

The Place of the Church and of the Professional Clergyman 

I Cor. 9"; I Tim. 5 17 - 18 ; Matt. 10 10 ; John 10 2 " 5 ; 



17 



18, 19 



1. The church is not a close corporation which alone has 
the right to dispense salvation — demonstrated by Luther. 

2. Seminary training and ordination does not necessarily 
give spiritual authority — proved by cases of D. L. Moody, 
R. E. Speer, J. R. Mott. 

3. The clergy are not an opposition party or society to 
the secular occupations. 

4. The church is not the place to which the great mass of 
the world comes to be converted. The great mass of the world 
has never come to church except when compelled to, and it 
never will. It is perfectly natural that it should not. 

5. The clergyman is not a convenience to whom the lay- 
man can delegate all his heart work that calls for sym- 
pathy — care of poor, outcast, bereaved, etc. 

6. The church is not the place to which the layman 
is to come to get culture and aesthetic enjoyment. 

The function of the professional clergyman in the 
church is that which busied Jesus in his relations with the 
Twelve. The church is a training school in method and 
a centre of inspiration for the Christian layman and for him 
only. It aims not primarily to do the direct evangelization 
and to bring the kingdom of God itself without a medium, but 
rather to train and inspire the Christian layman to go forth 
as its representative into his trade and evangelize that. The 
test of the efficiency of a church is not the numbers who 
come to it but its answer to the question whether any laymen 
go out from it to Christianize their respective professions. 

The test of the efficiency of our work in the Christian 
Associations is not the number of unconverted men who come 



94 THE WILL OF GOD 

to our meetings. They never have been many and they never 
will be. The test is the number of Bible groups and men we 
have actually working in the dormitories and the fraternities. 
Missions in the Foreign Field have been reorganized along this 
line in recent years and almost all the evangelization is now 
done by the native lay workers in their own trades and com- 
munities. The missionary is mainly the trainer of these native 
workers. The wonderful success of the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association is largely due to the fact that it represents 
Jesus' own method — evangelization directly by the layman, 
and indirectly by the clergyman. 

Should the leader of this group of evangelizing laymen 
be paid for his services in the highly professional work of 
training leaders? Certainly, but only those who receive the 
benefit of the training should be asked to pay. Should he 
receive a theological training? In general, yes. He ought 
to be intellectually the superior of all his students. Should he 
be ordained? Yes, in general, in order that there may be a 
check upon unworthy men getting into places of leadership. 

Should the laymen accept pay for their heart work with 
their unconverted mates? Never. Only when called upon 
for executive work in leading or to teach other Christian 
laymen how to do the work should they accept pay. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 95 

Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

FIFTH DAY 

The Evangelization of the World to be Directly Accomplished by 
Laymen 

I Thess. I 8 ; I Cor. 12 17 ' 18 ; II Cor. 2 14 ; I Tim. 2 8 ; 
Luke 17 21 (margin) ; John 4 21 . 

If Jesus and his twelve Apostles represent the model 
church it becomes at once apparent that it must be God's 
plan to accomplish the evangelization of the world directly 
not by clergymen but by laymen. The clergyman gathers the 
laymen about him, instructs them in methods and inspires 
them with motive; the laymen go forth into the world having 
caught the meaning of the great truth of Jesus — "the king- 
dom of God is in the midst of you" — i.e. that not in the 
church edifice nor in a Zion city (John 4 21 ) but right in 
one's own profession, wherever one has intercourse with 
men, there is the place where he, not the clergyman, can best 
accomplish the coming of the kingdom of God. The tent- 
maker among the tentmakers; the fisherman among the other 
fishermen casting their nets; you, the teacher among your 
colleagues and pupils as you teach; you, the physician or 
lawyer, among your patients or clients as you practice; you, 
the engineer, among your assistants, especially among the 
Italians who dig the ditches for your survey — wherever a 
layman is in contact with a body of men, there is his parish 
for active evangelization. And why is this evangelization by 
laymen God's chosen method? The Christian layman who is 
a specialist in his line alone has access to the minds and hearts 
of his associates. He alone can translate the life and teaching 
of Jesus into terms which his associates can understand and 
will respect. Such work as Professor Jenks' will have more 
effect on the sociologists of the country than many sermons. 
The next generation will see the extension of Professor Jenks' 
idea into all the callings and trades by Christian laymen in 



96 THE WILL OF GOD 

these trades. To expect one clergyman to preach the gospel 
acceptably to the unconverted of forty different kinds of 
specialized callings, each with its own viewpoint and special 
vernacular, is as ridiculous as to expect him to be able to preach 
acceptably in forty different language-. 

And how is the layman to accomplish this evangelization: 
Is he to preach and pray and scatter tracts or give Christian 
counsel or lead a Bible class ? Not at first. The greatest 
joy of his life as years go by and as he comes to have the 
complt:r soul-confidence of his associates will be in just such 
services. His work can never be complete without such a 
climax. But his first step in evangelization is to become a 
master in his special calling and in the life and teaching of 
Jesna translated into his own calling and his own life, so 
that he may have the complete respect and confidence of his 
associates. For their sakes he sanctifies himself oftentimes 
by hard technical study (John 17 **). Then he consecrates 
his life to the accomplishment of three things among his as- 
sociates — that they may be righteous, happy and contented, 
not only on the surface but in their heart life within — in the 
Holy Ghost (Rom. 14 i: ). In the little circle where his 
calling is he makes it his ideal that so far as lies in his power 
there shall henceforth be no sin-bound men. no sad men and 
no disheartened men. 

"He who cannot feel the humanity of his neighbor be- 
cause he is different from himself in education, habits, opin- 
ions, morals, circumstances, objects, is unfit, if not unworthy, 
to aid him." 

Macdoxald: Robert Falconer, page 874* 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 97 

Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

SIXTH DAY 

The Task of a Christian Layman Therefore as Difficult as that of 
a Minister or Missionary. No Greater Hypocrite than a Sham 
Christian Layman 

Matt. 7 13 ' 14 ; Luke 13 23 " 30 ; John 21 15 " 22 . 

THE SHEEP LOOK UP 
"The sheep look up and are not fed." — Lycidas. 

" Beating the air with threat'ning hands, 
The Demagogue defiant stands, 
Shouting beside the busy street, 
While round him hundreds hungry bleat,— 
'The sheep look up and are not fed.' 

" With eyes on manuscript attent, 
On theologic doctrine bent, 
The Preacher often scowls his views, 
Nor knows the starving in his pews, — 
'The sheep look up and are not fed.' 

" And oft in academic halls, 

Hid from the world by cloist'ring walls, 
The Teacher, in his learning's pride, 
Forgets the pupil at his side, — 
'The sheep look up and are not fed.' 

a O men of Christ, sent forth to preach 
The Better Way, the truth to teach, 
Still is He asking, 'Lov'st thou me?' 
Still is our proof of loyalty 
That those who hunger shall be fed." 

Johx Finley: Outlook, 16 December, 1905. 

The difference, then, between the clergyman and the Chris- 
tian layman is the same as the difference between the in- 
structor at West Point and the cadets under him. The 



98 THE WILL OF GOD 

instructor should, perhaps, have been a fighter in the past in 

order to give the most practical instruction and to command 

pect; he should be able at any time, perhaps, to take :~r 

:: himself. But his business is not to fight. He is no: 

::ed to fight. He is expected to tench men how. 

The prevalent modern idea that, if a man ieodefl not :: 

missionary r minister he is relieved from all further 
responsibility for Christian work, is utterly false and per- 
nicious. The decision not to be a clergyman, if a man be a 
Christian at all. is in fact his act of enlistment in active 
evangeliz a:: :::. The d o may spend much time in his 

with the theory of religion. We shall find no fault 
with him if he does. But the layman must evangelize. The 
idea that all the Christian layman is under obligation- 
do is to be an officer in the church, make a regular contribu- 
tion or hold down a pew on Sunday, is pagan. It is jost 
ridiculous as if at the outbreak rax the cadets at West 

Point and all the graduates should club together and hire the 
instructors there to go to the front and do the fighting while 
they either sit and look on. hear the reports from the 
front or listen to the military band. 

Two deductions follow from the hypothesis that Jesus 
and the Twelve are the model for us to follow. The first is 
that the task of the ordinary Christian layman in brie; 
righteousness^ joy and peace in his profession is the highest 
trust in the world. It is not a matter of inclination whether 
a man shall undertake it or not ; it is his duty. Only in this 
way at home and abroad can the evangelization of the world 
be accomplished. Such work is often more difficult than that 
of the ordained minister or missionary. It requires a daily 
battle with indulgence, greed and pride which the clergyman. 
surrounded by the safeguards of his profession, often escapes. 
It is as difficult to be a layman as to be a clergyman. 

The second deduction is this. There is no greater hypo- 
crite than a sham Christian layman — the man who says that 
there is so much work to be done at home that he will not go 
abroad and then, instead of living the life of heroism and 
martyrdom in his own profession against self-indulgence, 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 99 

ambition and greed in the attempt to bring righteousness, joy 
and peace among men, settles down to amass, and then to 
spend his income. Such a man does far more to retard the 
progress of God's kingdom than the clergyman who fails into 
sin. The latter is easily detected and universally scorned. 
The sham Christian layman can rarely be detected or shown 
up in this life. He is answerable only to God. The world 
can never know his motive in purchasing the three or four or 
five yoke of oxen, in buying the field or in marrying the wife. 
Was it in order better to serve men or merely to serve self? 
Either alternative is possible in every case. Which it was in 
his case God and he alone know. 

You have said that you do not feel qualified or good 
enough to be a clergyman or missionary. You rightly assert 
that God's will can and must be done in every honorable 
trade or profession ; hence you will be a layman. Good ! but 
do you dare to be a layman, to leave the protected path of the 
ministry for the hardest of all paths? It is a narrow way. 
If you are a hero, "strive to enter in," says Jesus (Luke 
13 24 ) ; but he also asks, "Are you able ?" (Mark 10 88 .) 



100 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study IX. God's Will May be Done in any Honorable Trade 
or Profession 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. In organizing a church after Jesus' method should 
the Christian laymen seek their leader or should the leader 
enlist the laymen? 

2. Has a group of laymen thus organized the right to 
partake of the Lord's Supper among themselves? 

3. What gives to one layman rather than to any other in 
a group the right to assume the leadership of that group ? 

4. Can God's will be done in every profession, e.g. liquor- 
selling, saloon-keeping, etc. ? 

5. Should one ever receive money for the conversion of 
others? (I Peter 5 2 .) 

6. Outline in a few sentences the relations that should 
exist between a layman and his clergyman; between a lay- 
man and his constituents* 



STUDY X 

The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

"And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, One 
thing thou lackest." — Mark 10:21. 

"So therefore whosoever he be of you that renounceth not all 
that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." — Luke 14 : 33. 

"Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even 
Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for 

a burnt offering And Abraham .... took .... Isaac his son 

.... and went Abraham, .... Lay not thy hand upon the lad, 

neither do thou anything unto him: for now I know that thou fearest 
God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, 
from me." —Gen. 22 : 2, 3, 11, 12. 

"Thy will be done forever and ever, O Lord, without if or but" 

St. Fraxcoise de Chantal. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Murray. Absolute Surrender. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 103 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

FIRST DAY 

If God's Will may be Done in any Profession, Why not then Select 
the First Career That Presents Itself, or the Pleasantest, Without 
Facing the Possibility of the Dangerous and Disagreeable Careers 

[Isaiah 53 6 .] 

Luke 14 28 " 32 , 22 33 ' 34 . 

In the preceding lesson we tried to establish the propo- 
sition that God's will can and must be done in every pro- 
fession. Why then, asks the perplexed inquirer, all this hue 
and cry about the dangerous and disagreeable professions — 
the missionary question, for example? Let each man adopt 
whatever calling he prefers, or better still let him take the 
first work that presents itself. Must every man, whether he 
ultimately goes or not, face this bothering missionary ques- 
tion before he decides on his life work? 

To this we answer unreservedly, yes. In the first place 
it is obvious on reflection that if everybody took the attitude 
just mentioned there would be no missionaries at all, and 
Jesus certainly laid back on us (Mark 16 15 ) the burden of 
the foreign world which we in our selfish wilfulness had left 
to him alone (Isaiah 53 6 ). Again, many careers which at the 
start appear to be dangerous and disagreeable, in time turn 
out to be the pleasantest possible, and vice versa. Many a 
man who has merely gratified his own desires in the choice 
of his career confesses after the lapse of years that he has 
made a failure of it all. Clearly then we have omitted some 
factor in our discussion of the layman's work and ministry. 
What is this factor? 



104 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

SECOND DAY 

God's Will may be Done in any Profession, but Unless the Man is in 
That Profession by God's Appointment it will not be 

I Cor. 7 20 ' 24 , 12 17 ' 18 ; Rom. 1 6 ' 7 ; John 4 34 , 5 30 , 6 38 . 

In order to do God's will in even the humblest occupation 
— shoemaking, for example — a man must be there by God's 
appointment. In other words the lawyer, doctor, teacher, 
merchant as well as the clergyman must be called to his pro- 
fession. It is true that Paul says that we are to remain in our 
secular callings, but men fail to note that he presupposes that 
we have been "called" to those callings (I Cor. 7 24 ). The 
eye is not to desire to be the ear or the nose. Why? 
Because God set each one of the members in the body even as 
it pleased him (I Cor. 12 18 ). 

Only one thing can give a man complete joy and power 
in his work. That one thing is the sure conviction that he is 
in that work — medicine, law, teaching, business, ministry, 
at home or abroad — "called of God." Nearly every letter of 
Paul begins with just such a burning conviction about himself. 
("Paul called to be an apostle. An apostle through the will 
of God. An apostle not from men but through Jesus Christ 
and God. An apostle of Jesus Christ through the command- 
ment of God." Rom. 1 x ; I Cor. 1 x ; II Cor. 1 1 ; Gal. 1 1 ; 
Eph. 1 1 ; Col. 1 1 ; I Tim. 1 1 ; II Tim. 1 x ). The best test 
a man can put to himself is to ask and to answer fairly this 
question: "Dare I assert that I am a lawyer, teacher, business 
man, doctor, 'not from men but through Jesus Christ — called 
of God — according to the commandment of God' ?" 

This conviction of mission which brings joy and power can 
only come to a man who has enlisted with no reservations 
for any service that his general may see fit to assign to him, 
and who knows that he has received a particular order from 
that commander which assigns him a specific task to do. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 105 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

THIRD DAY 

The Parallel from the Enlistment of the Soldier 

I Tim. 6 12 " 14 ; II Tim. 2 4 ; Luke 9 57 " 62 ; Heb. 11 8 . 

No parallel illustrates so well the duty of the true Chris- 
tian in this matter as that of the soldier. When the soldier 
enlists, he does not make his choice of guard duty, camp duty 
or service at the front, but he pledges his willingness to do 
anything, to make any sacrifice, to give his life if need be, 
whenever and wherever his commander may see fit. Now as 
a matter of fact the majority of soldiers who enlist are never 
called upon to make the supreme sacrifice of their lives. 
Nine tenths receive only the glory and the spoils at the end 
of the campaign. But it is absolutely necessary that when 
they started out every one of the ten tenths should have been 
willing to make this sacrifice had it been necessary. What 
would an army ever accomplish whose soldiers said: "We will 
drill and parade as long as there is no danger, but when the 
enemy appears please excuse us"? Such men are no more 
soldiers than sutlers, camp hangers-on. 

In the same way it stands to reason that nine tenths of 
those who enlist in Jesus' army will not be compelled to 
make supreme sacrifices. The majority must work in routine 
paths. They will share his glory and the spoils of his con- 
quests (peace, art, literature, culture), but every one of these 
nine tenths who does not go must have been willing to go 
when he started out had the orders come from the commander. 
Otherwise he was not an enlisted soldier in the army of Jesus. 
He was rather a sutler, a camp hanger-on, the sort of man of 
whom John speaks (I John 2 19 ), "They went out from us but 
they were not of us." Luke has preserved for us a picture of 
Jesus enlisting soldiers for his army. His method, which has 
sometimes been characterized as cruel (see Study V, Fifth 
Day), becomes clear and is seen to be absolutely just when we 



106 THE WILL OF GOD 

consider the matter in this light (Luke 9 57 " 62 ). No soldier on 
service entangleth himself in the affairs of this life — he is 
always ready to march at a moment's notice ; and no man hav- 
ing put hand to the plough and turning back is fit for the 
kingdom of God. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 107 



Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

FOURTH DAY 

God Does not Ask all Men to Make the Supreme Sacrifice or to 
Endure Great Suffering but He Requires that all be Willing to 
do so 

Mark 5 18 > 19 . 
John 7 17 . 
Gen. 22 1 " 18 . 

Here is the matter stated in its simplest terms. God 
does not in fact ask all men to make the supreme sacrifice but 
he requires unconditionally that they all be willing to do 
so. The story of Abraham and Isaac teaches this truth so 
vividly that little further explanation is necessary. Read 
the whole account (Gen. 22 1_18 ) and study carefully the re- 
quirement of God and the attitude of Abraham. 

"Our God is a jealous God. He will be either Lord of 
all or Lord not at all." John R. Mott. 

"A heart not quite subdued to God is an imperfect ele- 
ment in which his will can never live." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, page 816. 



108 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

FIFTH DAY 

The Spirit of the Hero and of the Martyr Needed in Every Profession 

II Cor. ll 23 - 27 ;Eph. 6 10 " 20 . 

• Mark 8 31 - 38 , 10 29 ' 30 ; Matt. 5 10 " 12 , 10 16 " 39 , 16 24 ; Luke 

21 17 .~~ 

Heb. 12 x - 4 ; 10 32 " 35 , 13 12 > 13 ; John 12 24 , 15 18 f (esp. 

v. 20). 

"It is the lot of every Christian to have those things 
happen to him that happened to our Lord Jesus Christ/' 

Pascal. 

Beware of the man who has no enemies. He is a time- 
server with his weathervane up to follow every wind that 
blows. Jesus Christ had enemies. Paul had enemies. Henry 
Drummond had enemies. Washington and Lincoln had ene- 
mies. Every man who attacks sin either by word or example 
has enemies. God and mammon do not go together, and the 
fight against sin in one's own profession will furnish the moral 
substitute for actual war which Professor James asserts that 
the young men of the present day need if they are to remain 
strong and virile. 

A man may have enemies without being an enemy to a 
single individual in the world. It was in that sense that 
Jesus and Paul and Drummond had enemies. To be an 
enemy to another man is pagan; but to have enemies may be 
Christian. We are not responsible for our enemies but for 
our enmities. In regard to enmities Jesus gives specific 
teaching (Matt. 5 23 ' 2 % Matt. 18 15 " 17 ; Luke 12 58 ). As re- 
gards enemies he teaches us to expect and rejoice in them 
(Matt. 5 12 ). A servant is not greater than his lord. "If 
they persecuted me they will also persecute you." 

Every profession today needs its heroes and martyrs — 
the teacher who will battle for a truth against adverse public 
opinion and who will give of his own soul experience to his 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 109 

pupils; the doctor who will stand against illegal practices; 
the lawyer who refuses to distort truths to win his case; the 
merchant who will not drive a sharp bargain; the statesman 
who will fight against corruption. It is easy enough to make 
a feeble protest for the right and then subside. That is the 
coward's method. The hero "resists unto blood — striving 
against sin." Only one impetus will ever inspire a man to do 
this for more than a short time. It is the sure conviction 
that he is a soldier on duty and has received an order from 
his commander which he cannot and will not disobey because 
he is an enlisted man. 



110 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

SIXTH DAY 

Enlist without Reservation or Condition and Await Orders. God a 
Commander in Whom His Followers can Trust 

I Thess. ' -: I Cor. 1 : \ Q^" 27 ; Rom. 4 21 , 8 28 , 12 112 ; 

II Tin-.. : " "■-. C - :£ : Mark 10 :: } : Matt. 6 Zi . 



Luke 14 - - : - »j Acts 5 **; James 5 -~ : I John 5 3 . 

"I dare not enlist because I am afraid that, although the 
chances are overwhelmingly against it. I still might be one 
out of the one tenth whom God will fix upon for some supreme 
sacrifice." This is the secret thought of many a timid heart, 
as this great question of surrender is faced. What shall we ' 
reply ? Shall those of us who have found our places in the 
firing line taunt with cowardice the faltering recruits ? Never ! 
Such a thought is absolutely natural and all of us if we are 
honest with ourselves have had just the same. It came to 
Jesus in Gethsemane. "O my Father, if it be possible let this 
cup pass from me/' and it is the lot of every Christian to 
have those things happen to him which happened to our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

We will simply call attention to two facts. i God will 
never force you to make the supreme sacrifice unless you are 
perfectly willing to do it ; in other words, even after you have 
enlisted he never forces you by driving. He does not come 
into the army and order a certain company to march to cer- 
tain death with death penalty for hesitation, while he stays 
bad and watches the manoeuvre: but he comes and says 
as it were. "Those of the army who will follow me on this 
dangerous undertaking step forward three paces from the 
ranks.'' In Jesus' army the ultra-dangerous work is always 
done by the freewill volunteers and our Leader is always one 
of the company; and the marvel of it is — a thing which 
Napoleon could not understand — he always has men enough 
for his work and to spare. 

(2) God is a loving Father and he will not call upon you 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 111 

to make unnecessary sacrifices. It pains him more to see his 
children in suffering than it does them to experience it. He 
is a commander in whom his followers may trust. Do not 
fear to enlist without reservation or conditions and await 
orders. What those specific orders for each individual are 
and how one may learn them with exactness is the subject of 
the next nine studies. 

"When God puts down his great will beside me telling 
me to do it, he puts down just beside it as great a thing, his 
love. And as my soul trembles at the fearfulness of will, love 
comes with its calm omnipotence and draws it to himself; 
then takes my timid will and twines it around his, till mine 
is fierce with passion to serve, and strong to do his will. Just 
as if some mighty task were laid to an infant's hand and the 
engine-grasp of a giant strengthened it with his own. Where 
God's law is, is God's love. Look at law — it withers your 
very soul with its stern inexorable face. But look at love or 
look at God's will, which means look at love's will, and you 
are reassured and your heart grows strong." 

Drummond; The Ideal Life, page 375. 



112 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study X. The Necessity for Absolute Surrender of Self 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Does God always want a man to go where the need is 
greatest ? 

2. Cite instances of men who have taken up what they 
supposed to be disagreeable tasks and afterwards found the 
greatest joy in them. 

3. Cite instances of the reverse — supposed agreeable 
tasks turning out to be delusions. 

4. Can a life lived in accordance with God's will ever 
be a failure? (See W. W. Story, Poems, Vol. II., page 177, 
"Io Victis.") 

5. Is a life in which all but one thing is surrendered a 
Christian life? Can it ever be a happy life? (Mark 10 22 .) 

6. Is the old idea that each son should follow his 
father's trade possible under the Christian dispensation? Is 
this the reason why the Jewish religion of the Old Testament 
was never a missionary religion? 

7. Why should any man be afraid to face the missionary 
question or to listen to missionary addresses? 

8. Can a man near middle life, who becomes convinced 
that he entered his profession when God was calling him to 
some other, get a new grip on his work, and, indeed, turn it 
into a divine calling? (I Cor. 7 2 °- 24 ,) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 113 



We have now reached a point in our studies which is, in 
a very true sense, a parting of the ways. Hitherto the truths 
which we have examined have been simple intellectual propo- 
sitions — a statement of the Christian conception of God's plan 
for the world and for the individual, and of the sort of de- 
cision which God requires of his followers. The remaining 
studies — on the Finding Out of God's Will by each individual 
and on the Issues of Obedience — concern truths which must 
primarily be spiritually apprehended by the will, not accepted 
merely as intellectual propositions by the mind. He who, at 
this point, before entering upon the further studies will 
dedicate his life absolutely and unreservedly to God — and 
mean it — to do God's will promptly and without conditions, 
no matter where it may lead, as soon as it shall be clearly 
revealed, shall know of the teaching that follows — at least of 
the Scripture passages — whether it be of God or whether the 
various teachers speak of themselves. He who continues the 
studies without this decision may find some things that are 
interesting, even convincing, but the subject as a whole will be 
as much of an enigma to him as before. It will have no part 
in his life and he will not know. 



114 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study your answer to the request for decision on the pre- 
ceding page in the light of the following paragraph: 

"In nearly all the important transactions of life, indeed 
in all transactions which have relation to the future, we have 
to take a leap into the dark. If we waver .... that too is a 
choice .... we stand on a mountain pass in the midst of 
whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get 
glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If 
we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the 
wrong road, we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not cer- 
tainly know whether there is any right one. What must we 
do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, 
hope for the best, and take what comes. Above all, let us 
dream no dreams, and tell no lies, but go our way, wherever 
it may lead, with our eyes open and our heads erect. If death 
ends all, we cannot meet it better. If not let us enter whatever 
may be the next scene like honest men with no sophistry in our 
mouths, and no masks on our faces." 

Stephen: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1882), pages 
SSI, 33S. (Quoted in James: The Will to Believe, 
page 31.) 



C. THE FINDING OUT OF GOD'S WILL 

Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Con- 
dition for Knowledge of It. 

Study XII. The Universal WiU of God for AU Men. 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual 
Man. 

Study XIV. How to Find Out the Particular Will of God. 
(a) The Views of Modern Religious Leaders. 

Study XV. How to Find Out the Particular Will of God (con- 
cluded), (b) The Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles. 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test- 
Purity. 

Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone (continued), (b) The 
Second Test — Honesty. 

Study XVIII. The Fourfold Touchstone (continued), (c) The 
Third Test— Unselfishness. 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone (concluded), (d) The 
Fourth Test— Love. 



STUDY XI 

Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition for Knowledge 
of It 

"If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, 
whether it is of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John 7: 17. 

"Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye can- 
not hear my word." — John 8:43. 

"And none of the wicked shall understand: but they that are 
wise shall understand." — Daniel 12:10. 

"Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, 
because they are spiritually judged. But he that is spiritual judgeth 
all things, and he himself is judged of no man." — I Cor. 2: 14,15. 

"For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your ad- 
versaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay." — Luke 21:15. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Robertson, F. W. Sermons. Second Series, No. VII. — "Obedi- 
ence the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." 

Drummond. The Ideal Life— "How to Know the Will of God." 
Peabody, F. G. Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, pages 
99-102. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 119 



Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

FIRST DAY 

God's Will may be Known, not only for the Rare Great Occasions, 
but for the Ordinary Circumstances of Life 

I Cor. 4 19 ; Acts 2 28 , 18 » 22 14 ; James 4 15 ; Heb. 13 21 ; 
John 8 29 . 

''There is a will for where — in what place, viz. in this 
town or another town — I am to become like God as well as 
that I am to become like God. There is a will for where I 
am to be and what I am to be and what I am to do tomorrow. 
There is a will for what scheme I am to take up, and what 
work I am to do for Christ, and what business arrangements 
to make and what money to give away. This is God's private 
will for me, for every step I take, for the path of life along 

which he points my way; God's will for my career 

Every day, indeed, and many times a day the question rises 
in a hundred practical forms, 'What is the will of God for 
me?' What is the will of God for me today, just now, for 
the next step, for this arrangement and for that, and this 
amusement, and this projected work for Christ? For all 
these he [the Christian] feels that he must consult the will of 
God; and that God has a will for him in all such things, and 
that it must be possible somehow to know what that will is, 
is not only a matter of hope but a point in his doctrine and 
creed." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, pages 30 %, 308. 



120 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
tor Knowledge of It 

SECOND DAY 

God's Will is not a Mysterious and Obscure Thing Impossible to 
Comprehend. Any Man may Find it out and Furthermore, We 
are All Bidden to do so 

[Ps. 25 9 ] ; Rom. 12 2 ; Col. 1 9 ; Eph. 1 9 , 5 17 . 
Matt. 6 10 , 11 25 ' 26 ; John 7 17 . 

"You have thought about the will of God and read and 
thought, and thought and read, and you have come to this con- 
clusion that the will of God is a very mysterious thing .... 
which some people may have revealed to them but does not 

seem in any way possible to you One or two special 

occasions, indeed, you recall, when you thought you were near 
the will of God, but they must have been special interpositions 
on God's part. He does not show his will every day like that ; 
once or twice only in a lifetime, that is as much of this high 
experience as one ever dare expect. 

"Now of course .... it is clearly no use going on to 
find out what God's will is if the thing is impossible. If this 
experience is correct and we cannot know God's will for the 
mystery of it, we may as well give up the ideal life at once. 
But if you examined this experience even cursorily, you would 
find how far away from the point it was It is some- 
thing worse than unreasonable .... to say that we think it 
hopeless even to know God's will. On the contrary, indeed, 
there is a strong presumption that we should find it out. [Jesus 
says "any man" may know (John 7 1T ). Paul says we must 
find it out; it is our duty (Eph. 5 17 ).] For if it is so im- 
portant a thing that the very end of life is involved in it, it 
would be absurd to imagine that God should keep us even the 
least in the dark as to what his will may mean. And this 
presumption is changed into a certainty when we balance our 
minds .... on the terms of this text, The God of our fathers 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 121 

hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will.' It is 
not simply a matter of presumption, it is a matter of election. 
.... We are called to know his will. 

"How are you to know this secret will of God? It is a 
great question. We cannot touch it now. Let this suffice. It 
can be known. It can be known to you. The steps of a good 
man are ordered by the Lord. 'I will guide thee with mine 
eye/ Unto the upright in heart he shall cause light to arise 
in darkness. This is not mysticism, no visionary's dream. It 
is not to drown the reason with enthusiasm's airy hope or su- 
persede the word of God with fanaticism's blind caprice. No, 
it is not there. It is what Christ said, 'The sheep hear his 
voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth 
them.' " 

Deummond: Ibid., pages 26^-266, 



122 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

THIRD DAY 

The Failure to Understand God's Will due to the Employment of 
Wrong, or at Best Only the Secondary and Contributory, Instru- 
ments of Spiritual Apprehension 

I Cor. 1 18 ' 31 , 2 1 " ie ; II Cor. 4 3 - 6 ; John 8 43 ; I John 4 5 > e . 

"Jews ask for signs [appeal to the emotions] and Greeks 
seek after wisdom [appeal to the intellect] but we preach 
Christ crucified [appeal to the will], unto Jews a stumbling- 
block and unto the Gentiles foolishness, but unto them that 
are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God 
and the wisdom of God." (I Cor. 1 22_24 .) 

I. There are many instruments for finding out God's will, 
"It may simply be affirmed that there are a number of instru- 
ments for finding out God's will. One of them [the human 
will] is a very great instrument, so far surpassing all the rest 
in accuracy that there may be said to be but one which has 
never been known to fail." 

II. The secondary or contributory instruments which 
often fail. 

"The others are smaller and clumsier, much less deli- 
cate indeed, and often fail. They often fail to come 
within sight of the will of God at all, and are so far astray 
at other times as to mistake some other thing for it. Still 
they are instruments, and notwithstanding their defects have 
a value by themselves, ■ and w T hen the greater instrument 
employs their humbler powers to second its attempts, they 
immediately become as keen and unerring as itself." 

(a) Reason. "God is taking your life and character 
through a certain process, for example. He is running your 

career along a certain chain of events It is God's will 

for you to use this thought and to elevate it through regions 
of consecration into faith." 

(b) Experience. "There are many paths in life which 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 123 

we all tread more than once. God's light was by us when 

we walked there first But the next time .... he 

knew the side lights should be burning still and let us walk 
alone." 

(c) Circumstance. "God closes things around us till 
our alternatives are all reduced to one. That one, if we must 
act, is probably the will of God just then." 

(d) Advice of others. Take the advice of others freely — 
the advice of a non-Christian may have God's leading in it; 
but never regard such advice as final. Jesus often disregarded 
the advice of others. 

(e) Welfare of others. As a general thing we should 
guide our conduct by its effect on "the other fellow" but not 
always. Jesus often disregarded the apparent welfare of 
others. 

(f) Example to others. Generally a safe guide but not 
always. Jesus often disregarded the effect of his example on 
others. 

These secondary instruments "if not strong enough 
always to discover what God's will is, are not too feeble often- 
times to determine what it is not" but not always. 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, pages 808, 809. 

Astronomy is one of the most daring sciences which the 
human mind has ever formulated. But it must never be for- 
gotten that without another organ — that of sight — it would 
never have been possible. Had mankind been born blind we 
should never have had astronomy, and anyone who had sug- 
gested such an idea would probably have been laughed to 
scorn. But once granted the primary organ of sight, the 
secondary organ of reason has been able to build up the whole 
marvelous system. 

Once granted the primary organ of spiritual apprehen- 
sion, by which he saw God, Paul was able to reason out with 
his secondary instrument the grandest system of theology 
which the world has seen. But the latter organ, as in the 
case of astronomy, was helpless without the former. 



124 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

FOURTH DAY 

The Limits of Criticism and Reasoning Processes as Instruments of 
Spiritual Apprehension 

Acts 18 24 " 28 . 

"The geometer might as well expect to solve his problems 
by the function of smell as a responsible soul to find God by 
the understanding/ ' 

Bushnell: The New Life, page 182. 

See Phillips Brooks: The Candle of the Lord. Hugh 
Black: "The Paralysis of Criticism," Outlook, March 17 \ 
1906. 

If the mind were the final means of apprehending God 
we should be reduced at once to the position of Cicero with 
reference to the Roman religion — that only the intellectually 
gifted can be saved. Inasmuch as intellectual brilliance is 
largely a matter of education or inheritance, and this in turn 
is often a matter of chance, such an ordering of the world 
would involve great injustice. In the passage quoted above 
from Acts the case of Apollos shows clearly that spiritual ap- 
prehension cannot depend upon intellect alone. It also demon- 
strates the limits of a brilliant intellect until steered by a con- 
secrated will. Intellect alone was able to make small progress. 
But the combination of consecration plus intellect was invin- 
cible. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 125 

Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

FIFTH DAY 

The Human Will the.Organ of Spiritual Knowledge 

John 7 17 . 

"The one great instrument which uses them [the second- 
ary instruments] in turn .... and which supplements their 
discoveries or even supplants them if it choose by its own 
superior light and might and right .... is obedience. 
Obedience, as it is sometimes expressed, is the organ of 
spiritual knowledge. As the eye is the organ of physical 
sight; the mind of intellectual sight; so the organ of spiritual 
vision is this strange power obedience." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, page 310. 

Robertson was the first to apprehend this truth in 
modern times, and he coined the phrase, "Obedience the 
Organ of Spiritual Knowledge/' Drummond was keen 
enough to see that Jesus did not say this and that there is 
a contradiction in Robertson's expression. He wrote: — 

"It appears almost as if a contradiction were involved. 
To know God's will is as much as to say do God's will. But 
how are we to do God's will until we know it? To know 
it, that is the very dilemma we are in. And it seems no way out 
of it to say, Do it and you shall know it. We want 
to know it in order to do it and now we are told to do it in 
order to know it." 

Drummond : Ibid., pages 812, 813. 

Drummond pointed out that Jesus did not say if any 
man do he shall know — this would lead to blind fanaticism, 
going ahead without orders — but if any man be willing to do 
he shall know. 

"The being willing comes first, and then the knowing; 
and thereafter the doing may follow : the doing, that is to say, 
if the will has been made sufficiently clear to proceed." 

Drummond: Ibid., page 313. 



126 THE WILL OF GOD 

We therefore revise Robertson's statement to read — 
Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It. 

Just as a man who will not open or yield his eyes to a 
beautiful picture, will not see; just as a man who will not 
open or yield his mind to a thought, will not understand; so 
a man who will not open or yield his will to God's will, will 
not know, or see spiritually. The completely surrendered or 
open human will is the means of highest knowledge. 

"To be willing is a rarer grace than to be doing the will 
of God. For he who is willing may sometimes have nothing 
to do, and must only be willing to wait; and it is easier to 
be doing God's will than to be willing to have nothing to do — 
it is easier far to be working for Christ than it is to be 
willing to cease. No, there is nothing rarer in the world 
today than the truly willing soul, and there is nothing more 
worth coveting than the will to do God's will. There is no 
grander possession for any Christian life than the trans- 
parently simple mechanism of a sincerely obeying heart." 

Drummoxd: Ibid., page 319. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 127 

Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

SIXTH DAY 

"He That is Willing Shall Know" 

A practical case to illustrate. The German law requires 
that every foreigner entering a city must be announced to 
the city police by his landlord within six days after arriving. 
The landlord alone is responsible for this announcing and if 
he neglects to do it he is heavily fined. Suppose the foreigner 
stays four weeks and when he is ready to go the landlord 
comes and privately says to him: "When you come to the 
next city don't say that you spent four weeks here; just say 
that you have been traveling all the time. I neglected to 
announce you. I saved fifty cents for myself by so doing. If 
you let it be known I shall be heavily fined/' 

The foreigner is in a decidedly embarrassing position. 
Shall he not lie to save his friend? How shall he know God's 
will? Suppose he consults the secondary instruments. 

Reason says, Go ahead and deceive — don't make so much 
fuss over a little matter. 

Experience says, It is better not to get mixed up in a 
foreign police case. 

Circumstance says, It is the only way out of the hole, 
you must lie. 

Advice of others says, Lie every time, we do it regularly. 

Welfare of others says, You have no right to involve this 
landlord who has done so much to make it comfortable for 
you. It is a case of conflict of duties and the highest love 
requires that you lie. 

Example to others says, You don't want to get the repu- 
tation of selfishly sticking to a principle to save your own 
little mean soul when the financial welfare of another man is 
concerned. 

The Christian, however, is not satisfied with any one of 
these. By himself alone he decides: "I will tell the exact truth 
if asked, no matter what the result is. Truth I know to be 



128 THE WILL OF GOD 

God's will. If my friend gets fined I will pay his fine for 
him." Unselfishness is God's will. In other words he "is 
willing" to make any sacrifice personal or otherwise for 
God's will. When he has made this decision he goes forward 
in perfect peace; and before long God reveals some way out 
of the difficulty which he recognizes as the perfectly right 
one. And he "knows/' 

"Let us but get our hearts in position for knowing the 
will of God — only let us be willing to know God's will in 
our hearts that we may do God's will in our lives, and we 
shall raise no question as to how this will may come, and 
feel no fears in case the heavenly light should go." 

Drummond: Ibid., page 819. 

"Who of us has not bowed his will to some supreme law, 
accepted some obedience as the atmosphere in which his life 
must live, and found at once that his mind's darkness turned 
to light and that many a hard question found its answer." 

Brooks: The Influence of Jesus, page 281. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 129 



Study XI. Willingness to Do God's Will the Necessary Condition 
for Knowledge of It 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Is it true that if any man be willing he shall know? 
How much intellect is necessary to grasp spiritual truth? 

2. Where does Jesus teach that God takes an interest 
in even the smallest details of our life? 

3. Why is the impression prevalent that God's will is 
a mystery? 

4. In how far are reason, experience and circumstance 
safe guides to a knowledge of God's will? Are we some- 
times called upon to do the irrational thing? the seemingly 
irrational thing? an entirely new and untried thing? 

5. When all alternatives seem to be reduced to one, is 
that one surely God's will? May there still be others? 

6. When did Jesus disregard the advice of others ? 

7. When did Jesus disregard the apparent welfare of 
others ? 

8. When did Jesus disregard his example to others? 

9. Were the lonely nights which Jesus spent in the 
mountains times when he was getting himself ready to obey ? 

10. Does willingness always require immediate action? 
(Does enlisting necessarily presuppose immediate fighting?) 



130 THE WILL OF GOD 



TO FIND OUT GOD'S WILL 

1. Pray. 

2. Think. 

3. Talk to wise people, but do not regard their decision 
as final. 

4. Beware of the bias of your own will but do not be 
too much afraid of it ( God never unnecessarily thwarts a man's 
nature and likings, and it is a mistake to think that his will 
is in the line of the disagreeable 

5. Meanwhile do the next thing for doing God's will in 
11 things is the best preparation for knowing it in great 

6. When decision and action are necessary, go ahead. 

7. Never reconsider the decision when it is finally acted 
upon; and 

8. You will probably not find out till afterwards, perhaps 
1 ng afterwards, that you have been led at all. 

Smith: The Life or Henri/ Drummond, pases 127, 123. 



STUDY XII 

The Universal Will of God for All Men. "God's Will for the World 
— for Character" 

"Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is per- 
fect." —Matt. 5:48. 

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing .... making known 
unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which 
he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, 
to sum up all things in Christ." — Eph. 1 : 3, 9, 10. 

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven 
and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. And 
I saw the holy city,, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven 
from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I 
heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle 
of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be 
his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God; 
and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall 
be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, 
any more: the first things are passed away. And he that sitteth on 
the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." — Rev. 21:1-5. 

"For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but right- 
eousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." — Bom. 14:17. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Drummond. The Ideal Life— "What is God's Will?" 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 133 



Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

FIRST DAY 

The Universal and the Particular Will of God 

Universal. Acts 17 24 ~ 27 ; Isaiah 44 24 " 28 . 
Particular. Acts 22 10 - 14 , 13 22 . 

"There is a part of God's will which everyone may- 
know [so far as it has been revealed] — a universal part; 
[there is also] a part no one knows but you — a particular 
part. A universal part for everyone: A particular part for 

the individual There is God's will for the world and 

God's will for the individual. There is God's will written 
on tables of stone for all the world to read. There is God's 
will carved in sacred hieroglyphic which no one reads but 
you. There is God's will rolling in thunder over the life of 
universal man. There is God's will dropped softly on the 
believer's ear in angel whispers or the still small voice of 
God." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, pages 268, 278. 



134 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

SECOND DAY 

The Entire Universal Will of God for the World Cannot as yet be 
Fully Known, Since, in the Process of Evolution, it has not yet 
been Fully Disclosed. We may only Know that Part of it 
Which has been Revealed in Nature and through History up to 
the Present Day 

I Cor. 13 12 ; Phil. 3 12 ; Matt. 13 17 ; I John 3 \ 

''Through the ages one increasing purpose runs." 

Tennyson: Locksley Hall. 

"In one sense,, of course, no man can know the will of 
God, even as in one sense no man can know God himself. 
God's will is a great and infinite mystery — a thing of mighty 
mass and volume, which can no more be measured out to 
hungry souls in human sentences than the eternal knowledge 
of God or the boundless love of Christ." 

Drumaiond: Ibid.., page 267. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 135 

Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

THIRD DAY 

God's Revelation of His Universal Will for the World in Nature. 
" The Physical Contents of God's Will" 

Matt. 6 28 . 

"There is a part of God's will which every one may know. 
It is written in divine characters in two sacred books, which 
every man may read. The one of them is the Bible, the 
other is Nature. The Bible is God's will in words, in 
formal thoughts, in grace. Nature is God's will in matter 
and tissue and force. Nature is not often considered a part 
of God's will, but it is a part, and a great part, and 
the first part. And perhaps one reason why some never 
know the second is because they yield no full obedience 
to the first. God's law of progress is from the lower to the 
higher ; and scant obedience at the beginning of his will means 
disobedience with the rest. The laws of nature are the will 
of God for our bodies. As there is a will of God for our 
higher nature — the moral laws — as emphatically is there 
a will of God for the lower — the natural laws. If you would 
know God's will in the higher, therefore, you must begin with 
God's will in the lower, which simply means this — that if you 
want to live the ideal life you must begin with the ideal body. 
The law of moderation, the law of sleep, the law of regularity, 
the law of exercise, the law of cleanliness — this is the law or 
will of God for you. This is the first law, the beginning of 
his will for you. And if we are ambitious to get on to do 
God's will in the higher reaches, let us respect it as much 
in the lower; for there may be as much of God's will in minor 
things, as much of God's will in taking good bread and 
pure water, as in keeping good conscience or living a pure 
life. Who ever heard of gluttony doing God's will, or laziness, 
or uncleanness, or the man who was careless and wanton of 
natural life? Let a man disobey God in these, and 
you have no certainty that he has any true principle for 



136 THE WILL OF GOD 

obeying God in anything else: for God's will does not only 
run into the church and the prayer meeting and the higher 
chambers of the soul, but into the common rooms at home 

down to the wardrobe and larder and cellar, and into the 
bodily frame down to blood and muscle and brain.'"' 

Ibid. j pages ^di, ^dd. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 137 

Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

FOURTH DAY 

God's Revelation of His Universal Will for the World in Jesus, the 
Living Word, and in the Bible, the Written Word. "The Moral 
Contents of God's Will " 

Matt. 5 17 " 20 ; Heb. I 1 ' 2 ; John 1 14 , 14 15 > 21 " 24 . 

"From the moral side there are three different depart- 
ments of God's will. Foremost, and apparently most rigid 
of all, are the Ten Commandments. Now the Ten Command- 
ments contain in a few sentences one of the largest known 
portions of God's will. They form the most strict code of 
morality in the world; the basis of all others; the most 
venerable and universal expression of the will of God for man. 
Following upon this there come the Beatitudes of Christ. 
This is another large portion of God's will. This forms the 
most unique code of morality in the world, the most complete 
and lovely additional expression of the will of God for 
Christians. Passing through the human heart of Christ, the 
older commandment of the Creator becomes the soft and 
mellow beatitude of the Saviour — passes from the colder 
domain of law, with a penalty on failure, to the warm region 
of love, with a benediction on success. These are the two 
chief elements in the moral part of the will of God for man. 
But there is a third set of laws and rules which are not to 
be found exactly expressed in either of these. The Ten 
Commandments and the Beatitudes take up most of the room 
in God's will, but there are shades of precept still unexpressed 
which also have their place. Hence we must add to all this 
mass of law and beatitude many more laws and many more 
beatitudes which lie enclosed in other texts, and other words 
of Christ which have their place like the rest as portions of 
God's will." Ibid., pages 270, 271. 

Cf. Gal. 5 22 ; I Cor. 13 4 " 7 ; Col. 3 12 " 17 ; Eph. 6 15 " 18 ; 
Phil. 4 8 ; I Tim. 6 1X ; James S 17 ; II Peter 1 5 " 7 for other like 
collections of beatitudes. 



138 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

FIFTH DAY 

Can We ever Hope to Fulfil All These Laws ? 

Gal. 5 14 ; I Cor. l6 14 ; Rom. 10 3 - 10 , 13 8 " 10 ; Phil. S 9 ; 
Matt. 7 12 , 22 34 " 40 . 

James 2 8 ; John 13 34 ; I John 5 3 . 

"How can we do God's will? — this complicated mass of 
rules and statutes, each bristling with the certainty of a 

thousand breakages Can God know how weak we 

are, and blind and biased toward the breakages, ere ever we 
thought of him? Can he think how impossible it is to keep 
these laws, even for one close-watched, experimental hour? 
Did Christ really mean it — not some lesser thing than this — 
when he taught in the ideal prayer that God's will was to be 
done on earth even as it is done in heaven? 

"There can be but one answer. 'God hath chosen thee, 
that thou shouldest know his will. ' . . . . There by the side of 
our frailty, he lays down his holy will — lays it down con- 
fidingly as if a child could take it in its grasp, and, as if 
he means the child to fondle it and bear it in his breast, he 
says, 'If a man love me he will keep my words/ " 

Ibid., pages 272, 278. 

"When God puts down his great will beside me telling 
me to do it, he puts down just beside it as great a thing, his 
love. And as my soul trembles at the fearfulness of will, love 
comes with its calm omnipotence and draws it to himself; 
then takes my timid will and twines it around his, till mine 
is fierce with passion to serve, and strong to do his will. Just 
as if some mighty task were laid to an infant's hand and the 
engine-grasp of a giant strengthened it with his own. Where 
God's law is, is God's love. Look at law — it withers your 
very soul with its stern inexorable face. But look at love or 
look at God's will, which means look at love's will, and you 

are reassured and your heart grows strong So the 

Christian keeps that will or the laws of God because of the 
love of God." Ibid., pages 274, 275, 277. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 139 



Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

SIXTH DAY 

Although God's Universal Will for the World— His Will for Character 
— Cannot Be Fully Known; His Particular Will for Each Individual 
— His Will for Career — may be Fully Known by that Individual, 
and it is This Which We are Bidden to Know and Do 

Rom. 12 2 ; Eph. 5 17 . 

"In the Ten Commandments, in conscience, in the 

Beatitudes of Christ, God tells all the world his will It 

is as universal as his love. It is the will on which the character 

of every man is to be formed and conformed to God's 

But there is a will for career as well as for character 

If I have God's will in my character, my life may become great 
and good. It may be useful and honorable and even a monu- 
ment of the sanctifying power of God. But it will only be a 
life. However great and pure it is, it can ' - no more than a 
life. And it ought to be a mission. There should be no such 
thing as a Christian life, each life should be a mission. 

"Now those .... who are simply living in the world 
and growing character, however finely they may be develop- 
ing their character, cannot understand too plainly that they 
are not fulfilling God's will. They are really outside a great 
part of God's will altogether. They understand the universal 
part, they are moulded by it, and their lives as lives are in 
some sense noble and true. But they miss the private part, 
the secret whispering of God in the ear, the constant message 
from earth to heaven, 'Lord, what will thou have me to do ?' " 

Ibid., page 806. 



140 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XII. The Universal Will of God for All Men 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Have we received the highest revelation of character 
which it is possible for God to give? 

2. Is it possible for a man to know God's will for career 
without knowing his will for character? 

3. Has a Christian the right to transgress deliberately 
the laws of health? 

4. Did Jesus ever do so? 

5. How far can we learn God's universal will from the 
ancient classics? from modern literature? from secular 
biography and autobiography? from history? from tradition? 
from public opinion ? from natural science ? 

6. Is a man who has lived up to God's universal will 
for character as far as it has been revealed a perfect man? 
Is he a blameless man? 

7. Is any other instrument than the intellect necessary 
to grasp the universal will of God for the world? (Cf. James 
2 19 > 20 .) 

8. Is it possible for a man to do the broad, universal 
will of God for all men but not the particular for himself? 

9- Is the soul struggle and the definite conscious act of 
ethical decision necessary to know and do the universal will 
of God? (Luke 9 49< 50 f Matt. 10 40 " 42 , 25 37 " 40 .) 

10. Is this struggle necessary to know and do the par- 
ticular will? (Luke ll 23 ; John 8 43 ' 47 ; John 5 30 ; Matt. 19 

1G-22 tj 22, 23 \ 

11. Which is referred to in Matt. 7 21 — the universal or 
the particular ? Does the universal include the particular? 

12. Can a person do God's universal will by imitating 
another person who is doing God's will? (1 Cor. 4 16 , 11 x ; 
Phil. 3 1T , 4 9 ; I Peter 5 3 .) by imitating God? (Eph. 5 1 .) 

13. Can he do the particular will of God for himself in 
that same way? (John 21 21 ' 22 .) 



STUDY XIII 

The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man. "God's Will 
for the Individual — for Career" 

"I will guide thee with mine eye." — Ps. 82:8. 

"The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, 
and leadeth them out." — John 10:3. 

"The God of our fathers hath appointed thee to know his will." 

— Acts 22 :14. 

"A man after my heart, who shall do all my will." 

— Acts 13:22. 

"But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will." — I Cor. 4:19. 

"Come now, ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into 
this city, and spend a year there, and trade, and get gain: whereas 

ye know not what shall be on the morrow For that ye ought 

to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that." 

— James 4:13,15. 

"And a voice came out of heaven, Thou art my beloved Son; 
in thee I am well pleased." — Luke 3:22. 

"And behold, angels came and ministered unto him." 

—Matt. 4:11. 

"And behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved 
Son in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." — Matt. 17:5. 

"And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee 
that thou heardest me." — John 11 : 41. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Drummond. The Ideal Life— "What is God's Will?" "The 
Relation of the Will of God to Sanctification," "How to Know the 
Will of God." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 143 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

FIRST DAY 

What Do We Mean by the Particular Will of God for the Individual 
Man? 

Acts 22 3 " 21 (esp. vs. 14, 17, 18, 21). 

"It is a reasonable expectation that we may find it 
[God's will] so fully as to know at any moment whether we be 
in the line of it or no ; and when difficulty arises about the next 
step of our life, we may have absolute certainty which way 
God's will inclines. " 

Drummond : The Ideal Life, pages 266, 267. 

"There is an unknown part of God's will — at least, a 
part which is known only to you. There is God's will for the 
world and God's will for the individual. There is God's 
will written on tables of stone for all the world to read. There 
is God's will carved in sacred hieroglyphic which no one reads 
but you. There is God's will rolling in thunder over the life 
of universal man. There is God's will dropped softly on 
the believer's ear in angel whispers, or the still small voice* of 
God." 

Ibid., page 278. 

"Now this region may be distinguished from the other 
regions .... by its secrecy. It is a private thing, between God 
and you. You want to know what to do next — your calling 
in life, for instance. You want to know what action to take 
in a certain matter. You want to know what to do with your 
money. You want to know whether to go into a certain 
scheme or not. Then you enter into this private chamber of 
God's will, and ask this private question, 'Lord, what 
wouldest thou have me to do ?' " 

Ibid., pages 278, 279. 

"There is a will for career as well as for character. There 
is a will for where — in what place, viz. in this town or another 



144 THE WILL OF GOD 

town — I am to become like God as well as that I am to become 
like God. There is a will for where I am to be, and what I 
am to be, and what I am to do tomorrow. There is a will for 
what scheme I am to take up, and what work I am to do for 
Christ, and what business arrangements to make, and what 
money to give away. This is God's private will for me, for 
every step I take, for the path of life along which he points 
my way: God's will for my career/ 9 Ibid., page SOJf.. 

"There is a will of God for me which is willed for no 
one else besides. It is not a share in the universal will in 
the same sense as I have a share in the universal love. It is a 
particular will for me, different from the will he has for 
anyone else — a private will — a will which no one else knows 
about — which no one can know about but me/' 

Ibid., pages SOS, SOJ.. 

"The secret joy of asking a question like this ['Lord, 
what wilt Thou have me to do?'], the wonderful sense in ask- 
ing it of being in the counsels of God, the overpowering 
thought that God has taken notice of you, and your question — 
that he will let you do something, something peculiar, per- 
sonal, private, which no one else has been given to do — this 
which gives life for God its true sublimity, and makes a per- 
petual sacrament of all its common things." 

Ibid., page 806. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 145 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

SECOND DAY 

Does God Actually Communicate With Men to Energize and Guide 
Them ? 

Gal. 1 12 , 2 2 (Acts 15 2 ); I Cor. 15 8 ; II Cor. 12 1 " 10 ; 
Eph. S 13 . 

Matt. 3 13 " 17 , 4 10 ' 1X , 16 13 " 17 , 16 21 — 17 8 , 26 36 " 46 , 27 46 . 

Acts 8 2e . 

Acts J) 1 " 19 ^. 22 3 " 21 , 26 2 " 19 ; I Cor. 15 8 ), 10 9 " 16 , 12% 
16 6 " 10 , 18 20 > » 19 21 , 20 22 ' 23 , 27 21 " 25 . 

John 10 3 > 4 , 14 16 > 26 , 15 26 , 16 7 > 13 ' 14 ; I John 3 24 . 

"This is a distinct addition to the other parts — an ad- 
dition, too, which many men ignore and other men deny. But 
there is such a region in God's will — a region unmapped in 
human charts,, unknown to human books, a region for the pure 
in heart, for the upright, for the true. It is a land of 
mystery to those who know it not, a land of foolishness and 
weaknesses, and delusive sights and sounds. But there is a 
land where the Spirit moves, a luminous land, a walking in 
God's light. There is a region where God's own people have 
their breathing from above, where each saint's steps are 
ordered of the Lord." Ibid., page 278. 

Of the fact of some sort of communication between God 
and man there cannot be the slightest doubt. The verses 
cited above are sufficient in number to establish the fact with 
reference to Jesus and the Apostles. That many men have 
never had such intercourse is no argument against the pos- 
sibility of it unless it can be shown that these men have ful- 
filled the conditions under which, according to Jesus and 
Paul, such communication is possible, and that then there has 
been no intercourse. What are these conditions and how are 
we to expect the messages of God to come to us? 



146 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

THIRD DAY 

The Human Will the Receiving Instrument of Divine Communication 
John 7 ". 

"The model life is not to be mystically attained. There is 
spirituality about it but no unreality." Ibid., page 231. 

"This is not mysticism, no visionary's dream. It is 
not to drown the reason with enthusiasm's airy hope or su- 
persede the word of God with fanaticism's blind caprice. 
No, it is not that. It is what Christ said: 'The sheep hear his 
voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth 
them.' " Ibid., page 277. 

Man learns God's will, not primarily through the five 
physical senses and the mind, but through the organ of 
spiritual apprehension, the human will. It is with reference to 
this point that many men go astray at the very start. The 
people of earlier and more primitive ages expressed their 
experience when God communicated with them in the only 
terms which they had — the terms of human communication — 
vision and the voice. Their experience was real but they 
could only imperfectly express it, and they needed to express 
impelling conviction in some such way that it would not be con- 
fused with an ordinary thought or idea. It is significant that 
when God communicates with man in these Gospel records 
his words are generally either a conviction of sin, a command 
to service, or an assurance, i.e. an irresistible conviction, im- 
pelling and energizing a man either to go ahead or to stop 
short. 

It is in the realm of the will, then, that God communi- 
cates with men. even as Jesus said: "If any man be willing, 
he shall know." We are to expect no hand reaching down 
from heaven, no human voice — only the unmistakable, irresis- 
tible conviction energizing the human will. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 147 



Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

FOURTH DAY 

The Significance of the Compelling Conviction 

Rom. 9 1 ; Matt. 16 17 ; James 3 17 ; 1 John 4 1 ' 13 ; Rev. 
17 17 ; II Peter 1 21 . 

How are we to explain the sense of mission in all the 
great leaders of the world's civilization — their irresistible con- 
viction that they were in the right and their instant willing- 
ness to die for such convictions? Napoleon had no such con- 
viction about his work — he did not die on the field of Water- 
loo but fled from it, and it is just this lack of "mission" in 
his career that has caused him to be denied a place among the 
leaders of the world's civilization. But Socrates, Joan of 
Arc, Abraham Lincoln had this very thing. Socrates has left 
on record the description of his "Daemonium" — the inward 
impulse which ever impelled him to go ahead. For Jesus 
and Paul this same phenomenon expresses itself in the ever 
recurring phrase, "I must." And the interesting thing to note 
is that extensive education is not necessary to such a convic- 
tion. Any man (John 7 1T ) may have such assurance with ref- 
erence to his course not only about great things but also about 
the little things — every step of his life. Any man may have 
this sure conviction, but before he will, two things are essential 
for the most of us — the receiving instrument must be cleaned, 
and it must be made strong in order most fully to receive the 
communications. 



148 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

FIFTH DAY 

How May We Prepare Ourselves to Receive the Compelling Con- 
viction ? 

(a) The cleaning of the receiving instrument — The sig- 
nificance of right living and a clear conscience. 

"Which of you convicteth me of sin?" John 8 46 . 
[Prov. 21 2 ] ; I Thess. 4 3 " 12 ; I Cor. 1 8 , 4 4 ; II Tim. 2 19 . 



Mark 3 11 ; Matt. 5 8 > 23 > 24 , 13 15 ; Acts 8 21 , 23 \ 24 16 ; 
James 4 8 ; Heb. 9 9 ' 14 , 10 22 , 13 18 ; I Peter 1 18 " 16 , 3 16 ; I John 
3 19 " 24 ; II Peter 3 14 . 

"Wisdom will not enter into a soul that deviseth evil, nor 
dwell in a body that is held in pledge by sin." 

Wisdom of Solomon 1 : .£. 

"It requires a well-kept life to know the will of God, 
and none but the Christlike in character can know the Christ- 
like in career." 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, page 307. 

"The practical object of the first process is mainly to put 

the thing in position where God can use it A man is 

consecrated that God may use him. It is the process by which 
he is got into position for God." Ibid., page 285. 

Intercourse of God with man in the Bible is always pre- 
ceded, either immediately or in the more remote past, by a 
moral victory. It is the "pure in heart" who see God. Those 
who have been faithful in that which is least are entrusted 
with the true riches. He who loses his life in deeds of un- 
selfishness "finds it." Examine all the instances of the com- 
munication between God and Jesus in the New Testament 
and see if Jesus has not won some moral victory just before 
each instance. 

It is here that the universal will of God is connected 
with the particular. Transgression of the universal will of 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 149 

God — the laws of nature and morality so far as they have been 
revealed — is sin and sin blocks the channel of communication. 
In other words, obedience to the universal will of God is the 
first step toward knowing the particular will of God. 

"Does it seem to you impossible that you can ever find 
your way into a path prepared for you by God and be led 
along in it by his mighty counsel? Let me tell you a secret. 
It requires a very close, well-kept life to do this; a life in 
which the soul can have confidence always toward God; a life 
which allows the Spirit always to abide and reign; driven 
away by no affront of selfishness. There must be a complete 
renunciation of self-will/' 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 26 ', 27. 



150 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

SIXTH DAY 

How May We Prepare Ourselves to Receive the Compelling Con- 
viction? (concluded) 

(b) The strengthening of the receiving instrument — The 
training and developing of the human will, 

"I do always the things that are pleasing to him." 
John 8 29 . 

Mark 10 32 " 34 ; Matt. 21 28 - 31 ; Luke 9 51 " 62 , 14 25 " 35 (esp. 
v. S3). 

Not only is a clean instrument necessary to receive the 
divine communication. We must also have a strong instru- 
ment. "The real organ of knowing God's will/' says Drum- 
mond (page 316), "[may be] so out of order from disuse that 
even reason would be biased in its choice. A heart not quite 
subdued to God is an imperfect element in which his will can 
never live; and the intellect which belongs to such a heart is 
an imperfect instrument and cannot find God's will unerringly 
— for God's will is found in regions which obedience only 
can explore." 

The human will can be trained and strengthened so that 
the mind will have greater sensibility in apprehension of con- 
viction. Once granted the foundation of right living and a 
clear conscience, the delicacy of perception of God's commu- 
nications is directly proportionate to the development and 
strength of the human will. God's messages and missions 
have never been given to weak men. But a word of caution 
should be inserted here. There is a difference between a 
strong will (I Cor. 7 37 ) and a stubborn will (Titus 1 7 ). 
A stubborn will is, in reality, a weak will. A strong will 
is a will that has been trained to be master of itself by self- 
denial; and, inasmuch as absolute surrender is the highest 
form of self-denial (Luke 14 33 ), it follows that absolute sur- 
render is the strongest exercise of which the human will is 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 151 

capable. This seems like a paradox but it is a fact, and it 
explains why the apparent weakness and submissiveness of 
Christianity has produced so many physical and moral heroes. 

Are there means for increasing the power of the human 
will as there are for increasing the power of the human eye 
and the human mind? There certainly are. Prof. William 
James in his "Psychology" [Briefer Course], page 149, at 
the close of the chapter on "Habit" gives a most effective s 
method. "Be ascetically heroic and self-denying about some 
one little thing each day," he says. Pick out some one thing, 
some article of diet or habit and deny yourself it without ex- 
ception, not because you need to but because you have once 
decided to. Jesus himself followed this same method. In 
certain matters he never allowed an exception: (John 8 29 ) 
"I do always the things that are pleasing to him." 

Can we combine the cleaning and strengthening of the 
human will into one process ? Can we set before us some 
absolute moral standards of right living which we can apply 
to every question that arises, from which we allow ourselves 
no right of deviation? and will the practice of this process 
result in undoubted, compelling convictions from God? In 
the next lesson we shall give the result of such an attempt 
on the part of six modern religious leaders ; in the lesson after, 
the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles on the same point. 



152 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIII. The Particular Will of God for Each Individual Man 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. How far can we learn God's particular will for us 
individually from nature? from the Bible? from the ancient 
classical writers? from the modern literature? from secular 
biography and autobiography? from another man? (Phil. 4 9 .) 

2. Carlyle says of the religious leader: "It is ever the way 
with the thinker, the Spiritual Hero. What he says all men 
were not far from saying, were longing to say." Have you 
not had this experience — where some great preacher put into 
words a thought which you had had vaguely in your mind for 
a long time, but which was not clear enough to be expressed? 
Why was he able to express it and you were not? 

3. Can convictions take on such reality as to be regarded 
as visions? 

4. What assurance have we in Scripture that God cares 
for the smallest details of our life and career? 

5. How distinguish compelling convictions from ordinary 
impulses? (I John 4 1 ; James 3 17 .) 

6. Do doubts have a moral root? If so can they be 
cured by right action, i.e. by running back to the switch where 
we ran off the main line of obedience? 

"If you have lost the blessing .... go back and search 
for it, and you will find it where you lost it ! Just there and 
nowhere else. Have you found the spot where .your obedi- 
ence failed? Yield and obey just there, pick up your obedi- 
ence where you dropped it, and there you may obtain the 
blessing again as you obtained it at the first; but just there 
and nowhere else." 

MacNeil: The Spirit-Filled Life, page 12^. 



STUDY XIV 

How to Know the Particular Will of God (a) The Views of Modern 
Religious Leaders 

1. Horace Bushnell: "Do the right." 

2. Canon Mozley: "Love." 

3. F. W. Robertson: "Be generous, chaste, true, brave." 

4. Henry Drummond: "Practice I Cor. 13:4-6." 

5. Robert E. Speer: "Practice John 6:29; I Thess. 4:3; Matt. 
18:14." 

6. Lyman Abbott: "Follow Christ in your life." 



Can we combine the cleansing and developing of our 
instrument for knowing God's will into one process? Can we 
set before us some absolute moral standards of right living, 
which we can apply to every question, great or small, that 
arises, and from which we allow ourselves no right of devi- 
ation? And will the practice of this process result in un- 
doubted compelling convictions from God? As the universal 
will of God passes in review each day before us in the revela- 
tions of nature and humanity will he, through the instrumen- 
tality of these standards, lay unmistakably upon our hearts 
those particular phases of this universal will which are his 
particular will for us? 

Let us trace chronologically the history of this attempt in 
modern times. Six men who no one doubts were led of God 
have given us, each one, the story of his experience and in 
nearly every instance the result. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 155 

Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

FIRST DAY 

Horace Bushnell— "Do the Right' ' 

"Have I ever consented to be, and am I really now, in 
the right, as in principle and supreme law; to live for it; 
to make any sacrifice it will cost me; to believe everything it 
will bring me to see; to be a confessor of Christ as soon as 
it appears to be enjoined upon me; to go on a mission to the 
world's end if due conviction sends me; to change my occu- 
pation for good conscience's sake; to repair whatever wrong 
I have done to another; to be humbled if I should before my 
worst enemy; to do complete justice to God, and if I could 
to all worlds — in a word, to be in wholly right intent, and 
have no mind but this forever?" 

Cheney: Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, pages 57, 
58. 

Bushnell has left us the story of how he came to accept 
this standard and what it meant in his later life in a sermon on 
"Dissolving of Doubts," first delivered to the students of 
Yale College. 

"Suppose that one of us, clear of all the vices, having 
a naturally active-minded inquiring habit, occupied largely 
with thoughts of religion; never meaning to get far away 
from the truth, but, as he thinks, to find it, only resolved to 
have a free mind, and not allow himself to be carried by force 
or fear, or anything but real conviction — suppose that such a 
one, going on thus, year by year, reading, questioning, hear- 
ing all the while the gospel in which he has been educated, 
sometimes impressed by it, but relapsing shortly into greater 
doubt than before, finds his religious beliefs wearing out and 
vanishing, he knows not how, till, finally, he seems to really 
believe nothing. He has not meant to be an atheist; but he 
is astonished to find that he has nearly lost the conviction of 



156 THE WILL OF GOD 

God, and cannot, if he would, say with any emphasis of con- 
viction that God exists. The world looks blank, and he feels 
that existence is getting blank also to himself. This heavy 
charge of his possibly immortal being oppresses him, and he 
asks again and again, 'What shall I do with it?' His hunger 
is complete, and his soul turns every way for bread. His 
friends do not satisfy him. His suns do not rise but only 
climb. A kind of leaden aspect overhangs the world. Till, 
finally, pacing his chamber some day, there comes up sud- 
denly the question, 'Is there, then, no truth that I do believe? 
Yes, there is this one, now that I think of it; there is a dis- 
tinction of right and wrong that I never doubted, and I see 
not how I can; I am even quite sure of it/ Then forthwith 
starts up the question, 'Have I, then, ever taken the prin- 
ciple of right for my life? I have done right things as men 
speak; have I ever thrown my life out on the principle to 
become all it requires of me? No, I have not, consciously 
I have not. Ah ! then here is something for me to do ! No 
matter what becomes of my questions — nothing ought to be- 
come of them if I cannot take a first principle so inevitably 
true, and live in it/ The very suggestion seems to be a kind 
of revelation; it is even a relief to feel the conviction it 
brings. 'Here then/ he says, 'will I begin. If there is a 
God, as I rather hope there is, and very dimly believe, he is a 
right God. If I have lost him in wrong, perhaps I shall find 
him in right. Will he not help me, or perchance, even be 
discovered to me?' Now the decisive moment is come. He 
drops on his knees, and there he prays to the dim God, dimly 
felt, confessing the dimness for honesty's sake, and asking for 
help that he may begin a right life. He bows himself on it, 
as he prays, choosing it to be henceforth his unalterably 
eternal endeavor. 

"It is an awfully dark prayer in the look of it; but the 
truest and best he can make, the better and the more true 
that he puts no orthodox colors on it ; and the prayer and the 
vow are so profoundly meant that his soul is borne up into 
God's help, as it were, by some unseen chariot, and permitted 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 157 

to see the opening of heaven even sooner than he opens his 
eyes. He rises and it is as if he had gotten wings. The whole 
sky is luminous about him. It is the mornings as it were, of 
a new eternity. After this all troublesome doubt of God's 
reality is gone, for he has found him ! A being so profoundly 
felt must inevitably be. 

"Now this conversion, calling it by that name as we prop- 
erly should, may seem, in the apprehension of some, to be a 
conversion for the gospel, and not in it or by it — a conversion 
by the want of truth more than by the power of truth. But 
that will be a judgment more superficial than the facts per- 
mit. No, it is exactly this; it is seeking first the kingdom of 
God and his righteousness — exactly that, and nothing less. 
And the dimly groping cry for help, what is that but a feel- 
ing after God, if, haply, it may find him, and actually finding 
him not far off? And what is the help obtained but exactly 
the true Christ-help? And the result, what, also, is that, but 
the kingdom of God within, righteousness and peace and joy 
in the Holy Ghost? 

"There is a story lodged in the little bedroom of one of 
these dormitories which I pray God his recording angel may 
note, allowing it never to be lost." 

Ibid,, pages 58, 59. 



158 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

SECOND DAY 

Canon Mozley — "Love" 

"The New Testament describes, in various parts, what 
spiritual character is, its expressions and manifestations; but 
there is one gift which sums up all the features of it, — the 
gift of love or charity. This is a comprehensive term in 
Scripture, to denote a combination of qualities of mind, and 
there is a description of such a person, given by St. Paul 
in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which has stood as the 

great Christian portrait in all ages There are those 

who stand out from among the crowd, which reflects merely 
the atmosphere of feeling and standard of society around it, 
with an impress upon them which bespeaks a heavenly birth. 
Their criterion of what is valuable, and to be sought after, is 
different from that of others. They do not press forward for 
the prizes of this world; they stand apart from the struggle 
in which common minds are absorbed. But they do this with- 
out spiritual pride, they think little of themselves and much of 
others, and they have a love of their brethren and of all 
whom God has made after his own image. They have these 
and other great common characteristics, though they have 
differences of natural disposition, and exhibit the action of 
divine grace, each in the form in which his natural character 
is adapted to show it." 

Mozley: Sermons before the University of Oxford, page 

no. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 159 

Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

THIRD DAY 

Frederick W. Robertson — "Be Generous, Chaste, True, Brave* ' 

"It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that 
the props on which it has blindly rested so long are, many of 
them, rotten, and begins to suspect them all; when it begins to 
feel the nothingness of many of the traditionary opinions 
which have been received with implicit confidence, and in that 
horrible insecurity begins also to doubt whether there be any- 
thing to believe at all. It is an awful hour — let him who has 
passed through it say how awful — when this life has lost its 
meaning, and seems shriveled into a span; when the grave 
appears to be the end of all, human goodness nothing but a 
name, and the sky above this universe a dead expanse, black 
with the void from which God himself has disappeared. In 
that fearful loneliness of spirit, when those who should have 
been his friends and counsellors only frown upon his mis- 
givings, and profanely bid him stifle doubts which, for aught 
he knows, may arise from the fountain of truth itself; to ex- 
tinguish, as a glare from hell, that which, for aught he knows, 
may be light from heaven, and everything seems wrapped in 
hideous uncertainty, I know but one way in which a man may 
come forth from his agony scathless; it is by holding fast to 
those things which are certain still — the grand, simple land- 
marks of morality. In the darkest hour through which a soul 
can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. 
If there be no God and no future state, yet even then it is 
better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than li- 
centious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than 
to be a coward. Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the 
man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared 
to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. Thrice blessed is 
he who — when all is drear and cheerless within and without, 
when his teachers terrify him, and his friends shrink from 



160 THE WILL OF GOD 

him — has obstinately clung to moral good. Thrice blessed 
because his night shall pass into clear, bright day. 

"I appeal to the recollection of any man who has passed 
through that hour of agony, and stood upon the rock at last, 
the surges stilled below him, and the last cloud drifted from 
the sky above, with a faith and hope and trust no longer tra- 
ditional but of his own — a trust which neither earth nor hell 
shall shake thenceforth forever." 

Brooke: Life and Letters of F. TV. Robertson, Vol. I., 
Chapter III. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 161 

Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

FOURTH DAY 

Henry Drummond — "Practice I Cor. 13: 4-6" 

"How many of you will join me in reading this chapter 
[I Cor. 13] once a week for the next three months? A man 
did that once and it changed his whole life. [This is one of 
Drummond's impersonal allusions to himself. H. B. JV.~\ 
Will you do it ? It is for the greatest thing in the world. You 
might begin by reading it every day, especially the verses 
which describe the perfect character, 'Love suffereth long, and 
is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself/ Get these 
ingredients into your life. Then everything that you do is 
eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. No 
man can become a saint in his sleep; and to fulfil the condi- 
tion required demands a certain amount of prayer and medi- 
tation and time, just as improvement in any direction, bodily 
or mental, requires preparation and care. Address yourself to 
that one thing; at any cost have this transcendent character 
exchanged for yours. You will find as you look back upon 
your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when 
you have really lived, are the moments when you have done 
things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above 
and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there leap for- 
ward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do 
unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too 
trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into 
your eternal life. I have seen almost all the beautiful things 
God has made: I have enjoyed almost every pleasure he has 
planned for man: and yet as I look back I see standing out 
above all the life that has gone, four or five short experiences 
when the love of God reflected itself in some poor imitation, 
some small act of love of mine, and these seem to be the things 
which alone of all one's life abide. Everything else in all our 



162 THE WILL OF GOD 

lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the 
acts of love which no man knows about or can ever know 
about — they never fail." 

Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, pages 
59-61. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 163 



Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

FIFTH DAY 

Robert E. Speer— "This is the Will of God: (1) That Ye Believe in 
Christ, John 6:29. (2) That Ye be Sanctified, I Thess. 4: 3. (3) 
That No One Should Perish, Matt. 18: 14" 

"So clearly that we may never miss it, the Bible suggests 
the three great outlines of God's will. All the rest is com- 
paratively unimportant detail. The will of God for every 
man and woman is this, first of all: 'This is the work (or the 
will) of God, that ye should believe on him whom God hath 
sent/ That is first. No one of us can ever discover any- 
thing else about the will of God until we have taken that first 
step. The first will of God for every man and woman is that 
the child of God should enter into Christ's life, and believe 
on him. There are many ways of stating this truth. Jesus, 
of course, chose the best of them all: that the will of God 
consisted in believing in him, consisted in entering into his 
friendship, in getting into moral and spiritual sympathy with 
him, in making a complete surrender of life to him. That is 
the will of God for each of us. 

"What is next ? 'This is the will of God, even your sancti- 
fication,' your holiness of life; that we should go in Christ's 
fellowship to a life of Christ's fullness, to a life enriched with 
all that Christ came to bring, to a life in which Christ him- 
self is all that he can be to the souls of men. 

"And what is third? 'It is not God's will that any man 
should perish.' It is God's will that all should come unto 
life. However narrow you and I may be, God has a heart of 
universal love. He would save every man if he could. His 
love is so large that every soul in the world is embraced in 
it, and only those fall out of it who antagonize his will." 

Speer; "Remember Jesus Christ," pages 105-107. 



164 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 

Mews of Modern Religious Leaders 

SIXTH DAY 

Lyman Abbott — ''Follow Christ in Your Life" 

"What shall I do to get this fellowship with the Great 
Companion and the fruits of this fellowship? Follow Christ 
in your life, and leave him to bring to you the fellowship and 

its fruits Forget yourself, and think only of your 

duty. Do what Christ bids you do, regardless of the question 
whether he gives you peace for doing it or not. Read the 
Sermon on the Mount; and then try to live it. 'Let your light 
so shine/ Do you know, or can you find, any darkened home? 
Go into it and carry the illumination of a bright and cheery 
presence. 'Love your enemies/ Do you know any one who 
has done you an ill turn? Study how you can do him a good 
turn. Give the whole of your mind to doing each hour the 
duty which lies next to you. And when the day is over, waste 
no time in an idle review to see whether you have done your 
duty well or not. Put your thoughts on the morrow, on the 
question what you can find to do to make some one happier 
and better for your being in the world. If you have peace 
be glad of it. If you have no peace, go on just the same, re- 
solved to show yourself, the world, and your Master how loyal 
you can be to your own life, to your fellowmen, and to him." 

Abbott: The Great Companion, pages 118, 119,123, 12 1^ 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 165 

Study XIV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (a) The 
Views of Modern Religious Leaders 

SEVENTH DAY 

There can be no doubt that each one of these six men 
found God as a present counselor and companion through 
that standard which he himself selected. Which one of the six 
shall we select as our absolute standard to recommend to all 
men? Bushnell says, "Do the right" — but what is the right? 
Different men have different standards ; BushnelFs standard 
is comprehensive but too general. Mozley says, "Love" — but 
do the majority of men understand love in the sense in which 
he meant it? This again is comprehensive but too general. 
Robertson says, "Be generous, chaste, true and brave"; here 
is an attempt to analyze BushnelFs "The right" into its 
elements ; but are not these mostly of one sort — the aggressive 
rather than the self-effacing virtues ? Henry Drummond says, 
"Practice I Cor. 13 4 " 6 ." Just the opposite objection may be 
brought to this; it is not complete in that it is concerned al- 
most entirely with the self-effacing virtues at the expense of 
the aggressive. Speer says, "Sanctify yourself, believe on 
Christ, and devote yourself to his program for the salvation of 
the world"; here we have the aggressive and the self-effacing 
virtues brought together, but in too technical terms to be 
practical for the novice. "What," he asks, "is sanctification, 
and what is it to believe on Christ, what creed and what method 
of work am I to follow ?" Lyman Abbott says, "Follow Christ 
in your life" ; everything is contained in this, but the ordinary 
man needs more specific and detailed instruction. 

Placing these six proposed standards before us, studying 
the full meaning of all the words used in them, can we re- 
duce them to three of four basic fundamental principles 
which will include them all and which their respective pro- 
posers found or read into them from innate moral standards? 

Are there absolute standards of right and wrong? How 
did Jesus find out the particular will of God for himself? 
He says that "he did always the things which were pleasing 



166 THE WILL OF GOD 

to God" (John 8 29 ) and the result was that he was sure of 
God's presence and guidance (John 8 29 , first half). What 
were these things that were pleasing to God? 

Let us go back then to the teaching of Jesus and the 
Apostles to see if we can reconstruct the touchstone which they 
must have applied to every question which arose, to discover 
the particular will of God for each step in their lives. 



STUDY XV 

How to Know the Particular Will of God (b) The Fourfold Touch- 
stone of Jesus and the Apostles 

j j Purity — Matt. 5: 29. Unselfishness — Luke 14: 33. 

( Honesty — Luke 16: 11. Love — John 15: 12. 

"For this is the will of God .... that ye abstain from forni- 
cation, that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own 
vessel in sanctification and honor [purity] .... that no man over- 
reach and wrong his brother in the matter [honesty] .... but con- 
cerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you 
[love] .... and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own busi- 
ness and to work with your hands [unselfishness]. — / Thess. 4:3-12. 

"Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one 
with his neighbor .... let him that stole steal no more [honesty] 

and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each 

other [unselfishness] .... and walk in love, even as Christ .... 
gave himself [love] .... but fornication, and all uncleanness, let 
it not even be named among you .... nor nlthiness [purity] .... 
wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the 
Lord is." —Eph. 4 :25—5 : 17. 

"Set your mind on the things that are above .... put to death 
therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, un- 
cleanness, passion, evil desire [purity] .... lie not one to another 
[honesty] .... put on therefore .... a heart of compassion, 
kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering ; forbearing one another 
and forgiving each other, if any man hath a complaint against any 
[unselfishness]; .... and above all things put on love [love]." 

— Col. 3:2-14. 

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure [purity], then 
peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy [unselfishness] 
and good fruits [love], without variance, without hypocrisy [hon- 
esty]. — James 3:17. 

"Do not kill, do not commit adultery [purity] : do not steal, 
do not bear false witness, do not defraud [honesty], honor thy 
father and mother, .... go, sell what thou hast [unselfishness], 
give to the poor, .... and come, follow me [love]." 

Jesus tathe Rich Young Ruler — Mark 10:19-21. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

er. The Principles of Jesus. Chapter VI. — "Jesus and 
Standards." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 169 



Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

FIRST DAY 

The Absolute Standards of Jesus 

Purity— Matt. 5: 27-32. 

Honesty — John 8: 44, 45, 46; Luke 16: 11. 

Unselfishness — Luke 14: 33. 

Love — John 15: 12. 

Read carefully Speer, The Principles of Jesus. Chapter 
VI. — "Jesus and Standards." 

Are there absolute standards of right and wrong? How 
did Jesus find out the will of God for himself? He says 
that he did always [i.e. without exception] the things which 
were pleasing to God. (John 8 29 .) We are to infer that 
through this act of his he cleaned and strengthened his will 
to receive the compelling conviction from God. The result 
was that he was sure of God's presence and guidance (John 
8 29 , first half). But what were these things that were pleas- 
ing to God ? 

Mr. Robert E. Speer has reconstructed from the teaching 
of Jesus the four standards in regard to which he never 
allowed himself an exception and with reference to which his 
teaching is absolute and unyielding. Jesus gives us no direct 
teaching in regard to such things as smoking, drinking, card 
playing, theatre, dancing, etc. He recognized that some men 
could decide one way and others j ust the opposite on like ques- 
tions and yet both sides be true Christians. But in regard 
to four things there was no such option. A man must be 
pure, he must be honest, he must be unselfish, he must express 
himself in deeds of love or else he cannot see the kingdom of 
God. There is no exception to be made on these four counts. 



170 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

SECOND DAY 

These Standards can be Easily Comprehended by all Men. They are 
Unanswerable when once Stated 

John 7: 53 — 8: ll=Purity an unanswerable standard. 
Matt. 21: 28-32= Honesty an unanswerable standard. 
Mark 10: 17-22= Unselfishness an unanswerable standard. 
Luke 10: 25-37= Love an unanswerable standard. 

The peculiarity of these four standards is that, in the first 
place, they are so simple that any man can understand them 
himself when they are once stated, no matter how simple he 
may be; and that in the second place they are so fundamental 
that no man dares deny that they should be followed by others, 
no matter how clever and wicked he may be. They need no 
explanation or defense when once stated. . The reason is that 
there is inborn in all humanity the distinction between right 
and wrong and these standards are the four elements of 
right. 

"If there be no God and no future state, yet even then 
it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste 
than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave 
than to be a coward." 

F. W. Robertson. 



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172 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

FOURTH DAY 

Their Interpretation and Practical Application by the Apostles as the 
Means of Determining God's Will 

IThess. 4: 3-12. 

Romans 12: 1—13: 10. 

Col. 3: 2-14. 

Eph. 4: 25—5: 17. 

James 3: 17. 

I Peter 1st and 2d chapters. 



Introductory 
Phrase. 



I Thess. 4: 3-12 Col. 3: 2-14. Eph. 4: 25—5: 17. James 3: 17, 

"This is the "Set your "Understand "Wisdom 
will of God." minds on" what the will from above" 
verse 3 verse 2 of the Lord is. ' ' 

5: 17 



Purity verses 3-5 


verses 5-8 


5:3-14 


"Pure" 


Honesty verse 6 


verses 9-11 


4: 25-30 


"Without 

variance, 

without 

hypocrisy" 


Unselfishness verses 11, 12 


verses 12, 13 


4: 3i, 32 


"Peaceable," 
etc. 



5:1, 



"Good fruits" 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 173 

Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

FIFTH DAY 

Their Practical Use Today as a Touchstone to Determine the Particular 
Will of God for Each Step of Our Career 

To every problem, great or small, which presents itself — 
in a small matter like one's bearing in a game of sport, in a 
large matter like the choice of a life career — the Christian 
who is absolutely surrendered to God asks himself this 
question: "Is the step which I had planned to take an ab- 
solutely pure one? is it an absolutely honest one? is it the 
most unselfish one? is it the fullest possible expression of my 
love? If it is every one of these four, it must be the will of 
God for me. If it fails to measure up to any one of these four 
standards it cannot be God's will and I must not take it, no 
matter what the refusal may cost me in suffering, mental or 
physical." As he holds his instrument of apprehension — the 
human will — resolutely to this standard, the Christian is 
conscious of its becoming strong both to know and to do 
God's will and there comes the undoubted, the compelling 
conviction which guides and impels him forward. 



This seems like a simple thing, but in it lies the secret of 
the miracle of obedience. "It has been before the world these 
eighteen hundred years yet few have even found it out today." 
(JDrummond, The Ideal Life, page 229.) It is like the story 
in the Old Testament. "My father, if the prophet had bid 
thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it ? how 
much rather when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean." 
(II Kings 5 13 .) 

"How this finite and this infinite are brought to touch, 
how this invisible will of God is brought to the temporal 
heart, must ever remain unknown. The mysterious meet- 



174 THE WILL OF GOD 

ing place in the prepared and willing heart between the 
human and divine — where precisely the will is finally moved 
into line with God's — of these things knoweth no man, save 
only the spirit of God/' 

Drummond : The Ideal Life, page 818. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 175 



Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

SIXTH DAY 

The Paradox of the Touchstone — an Absolutely Rigid Touchstone to 
Which no Exception may be Made and yet an Infinite Variety of 
Results, Some Exactly Opposite 

Luke 7 31 - 35 . 

This touchstone helps young men to reach a decision in 
the most perplexing question as to what to do in regard to the 
so-called doubtful pleasures — smoking, drinking, theatre, 
dancing, etc. Let a young man ask himself, Can I do these 
things and remain pure, honest, unselfish and loving? A man 
must be absolutely honest with himself, however, in deciding 
whether he is pure, honest, unselfish and loving. Let us take 
a practical example, e. g. smoking. 

Shall I smoke? 1. Does it affect my purity — excite the 
sensual? If it does it must go — the alternative is given in 
Jesus' own words (Matt. 5 29 ' 30 ). 

2. Does it affect my honesty? Granted that I can re- 
main pure, am I deceiving some parents or relatives who hold 
narrower views about it? If so, I must stop — a lie is damning. 

3. Does it affect my unselfishness? Granted that I am 
pure and honest in it, do I forget the rights of others in my 
own personal self-gratification? am I selfish or irritable with- 
out it? If so I must stop — selfishness is the death of the 
soul. 

4. Does it affect my active service of others? Granted 
that I am pure and honest and unselfish in it, does it take 
my time and energy? Life is short — one must use all the mo- 
tive power. Waste is a crime and lovelessness is death 



176 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XV. How to Know the Particular Will of God. (b) The 
Fourfold Touchstone of Jesus and the Apostles 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Was Jesus ever impure? 

2. Was Jesus ever dishonest? 

3. Was Jesus ever selfish? 

4. Was Jesus ever unloving? 
Cite instances. 



STUDY XVI 

The Fourfold Touchstone — (a) The First Test — Purity 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God .... with all thy strength." 

—Mark 12: 30. 

"If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee." —Matt. 5:29. 

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." 

—Matt. 5:8. 

"For this is the will of God .... that ye abstain from forni- 
cation; that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own 
vessel in sanctification and honor." — 1 Thess. 4: 3, 4. 

"But fornication, and all uncleanness .... let it not be named 
among you .... nor filthiness nor foolish talking, or jesting. 
.... Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of 
the Lord is." — Eph. 5:3, 17. 

"Set your mind on the things that are above Put to death 

therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, un- 
cleanness, passion, evil desire." — Col. 3:2,5. 

"But the wisdom that is from above is first pure." — James 3:17. 

"But if thou .... gloriest in God, and knowest his will .... 
thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou com- 
mit adultery?" — Rom. 2: 17, 18, 22. 

"And they that are in the flesh cannot please God." — Rom. 8:8. 

is the step which i had plaxxed to take ax absolutely pure 
one? If it is xot it caxxot be God's will for my life. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BushnelL The New Life. No. XIV.— "The Lost Purity Re- 
stored." 

Speer. The Marks of a Man. "Purity. — A Plea for Ignorance." 



A MAX'S LIFEWORK 179 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

FIRST DAY 

What Do We Mean by Purity ? 

Matt. 5 8 ' 27 " 32 ; II Peter 2 14 . 

"If we go to analogy, purity is, in character, what trans- 
parency is in the crystal. It is water flowing, unmixed and 
clear, from the mountain spring. Or it is the white of snow. 
Or it is the clear open heaven, through which the sparkling 
stars appear, hidden by no mist of obstruction. Or it is the 
pure light itself in which they shine. A pure character is 
that, in mind and feeling and spirit of life, which all these 
clear, untarnished symbols of nature, image, in their lower 
and merely sensible sphere, to our outward eye." 

"Labor then with all closest, most passionate application 
to conceive purity, what it would be to you if your soul were 
in it ; the consciousness of it ; the essential peace ; the elevation 
above all passion and all unregulated impulse; the singleness 
and simplicity of it; the glowing shapes and glorified visions 
of a pure imagination; the oneness of your soul with God; 
the conscious participation of what is highest in God — his 
untemptable chastity in goodness and truth." 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 263-1+, 21 S. 

If carried to its full meaning absolute purity would in- 
clude victory over every sin (Matt. 5 48 ; Gal. 5 19 ' 21 ). Prac- 
tically we confine it to the mastery of the animal, fleshly 
instincts in our nature. Impurity is yielding our will to the 
animal either in the realm of thought or of act. Purity is the 
mastery of the animal (not the extinction of the sexual) by 
the human will. 

An absolutely pure man from the Christian standpoint: 

1. May have impure suggestions and images come to his 
mind (John 7 53 — 8 11 ). Impurity enters with the act of will 
which allows them to stay in artificial contexts. 

2. Is controlled in his married life by considerations of 
efficiency in his work, of health, of unselfishness and of love 



180 THE WILL OF GOD 

(I Cor. 7 1_7 ; Mark 10 6 " 12 ). Questions of purity may arise in 
marriage as without ; as in relation to the avoidance of children, 
etc. 

"Fastidiousness .... is not any evidence of purity but 

the contrary When any disciple, therefore, calls it 

purity to be shocked or repelled by the scripture names of sins 
or the practical works of mercy needed in a world of shame 
and defilement, he reveals therein a bad imagination and a mind 
that is itself defiled/' 

Bushnell: Ibid., page 278. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 181 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

SECOND DAY 

Subtle Forms of Impurity 

I Cor. 3 3 , 10 7 ; Rom. 1 2 ^ 2 , 16 17 ' 18 ; Eph. 2 2 ' 3 , 5 3 ' 4 ; 

II Tim. 2 22 ; Titus 1 15 . 

Mark 4 24 ; Matt. 14 6 " 10 . 

'[The impure man] before he does wrong makes all 
manner of subtle excuse/ ' 

Fragment of a Lost Gospel (Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Pt. V., 
page 7, 1907). 

"Foul stories and impure jests and innuendoes, more 
clearly than oaths and curses befoul the souls of those who 
utter them while they lead the hearers into sin. Such things 
rob all who are concerned in them, either as speakers 
or listeners, of two things which are the chief safeguards of 
virtue — the fear of God and the fear of sin. They create an 
atmosphere in which men sin with a light heart, because the 
grossest sins are made to look not only attractive and easy, 
but amusing. What can be made to seem laughable is sup- 
posed to be not very serious/' 

Plummer: Expositor's Bible, James, page 188. 

Impure imaginations and thoughts. 

Objects pure in themselves which by association recall 
impure images. 

Slighting references to women. 

Ballet — Many forms of vaudeville and much in modern 
drama. 

Many modern so-called physical culture publications. 

Biographs and living pictures. 

Advertisements which appeal to the passions and much 
which goes under the name of "art" in modern magazines. 

Certain forms of souvenir postal cards. 

Some fiction, art, and dress styles. 

Flirtation where no true bond of love is intended. 



182 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

THIRD DAY 

The Physical, Intellectual, Social and Spiritual Results of Impurity 

I Cor. 3 16 ' 17 , 6 9 ' 12 " 20 ; Rom. l «•• *• * 516-21. Matt# 
5 29 > 30 ; James 1 14 ' 15 ; Rev. 21 8 > 2T , 22 15 ; II Peter 2 9 > 10 ' 18 > ]9 . 

"But give heed lest ye also suffer the same things as they; 
for the evil doers among men receive their reward not among 
the living only but also await punishment and much torture." 

Fragment of Lost Gospel, Ibid. 

Physical, loss of full efficiency of bodily powers. 
Gal. 6 8 ; I Cor. 6 18 ; Rom. 7 5 — the impure man is only 
one tenth of a man: 

"My good blade carves the casques of men, 
My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
My strength is as the strength of ten 
Because my heart is pure." 

Texxysox : Sir Galahad. 

Intellectual, loss of mind powers (Rom. 7 23 ). 

"The passions are loose upon the reason, the will over- 
turns the conscience, the desires become unruly, the thoughts 
are, some of them, suggested by the natural law of the mind, 
and some are thrust in by the disorders of vitiated feeling, 
corrupt imagination, disordered memory and morbid im- 
pulse The man is corrupted, as we say, and the word 

corrupt means broken together, dissolved into mixture and 
confusion." 

Bushnell: Ibid., page 265. 

Social, lack of self-respect, hence morbid self-conscious- 
ness (Rom. 7 18 ). 

Spiritual, cowardly shrinking from service of others and 
from duty, and separation from God (Rom. 7 19 , 8 8 ; Eph. 5 5 ; 
I Peter 2 1X ; I John 2 16 ' 17 ; Rev. 22 14 > 15 ). 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 183 

"It was not the mere muscle of the Teuton which enabled 

him to crush the decrepit and debauched slave nations 

It had given him more, that purity of his: it had given him, 
as it may give you, gentlemen, a calm and steady brain, and 
a free and loyal heart ; the energy which springs from health ; 
the self-respect which comes from self-restraint; and the spirit 
which shrinks from neither God nor man, and feels it light 
to die for wife and child, for people and for Queen." 

Ejngsley: The Roman and the Teuton, page Jj.6. 



Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

FOURTH DAY 

The Purity of Jesus 

Heb. 2 18 , 4 15 , 7 26 ; John 8 46 . 

See Speer, The Principles of Jesus. Chapter XVII. — 
"Jesus and Women." 



184 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test- Purity 

FIFTH DAY 

Is a Conflict Possible Between the Demands of Purity and Those of 
Honesty, Unselfishness or Love (Self-expression)? 

1. True purity presupposes honesty (Rom. 1 24 ' 25 ). 

2. True purity presupposes victory over self (Eph. 4 19 ; 
Mark 7 20 " 23 ; 1 Peter 4 ^ 2 ). 

3. True purity presupposes love (self-expression) (I Tim. 

i s ). 

"There are no fires that will melt out our dross and 
corrupt particles like God's refining fires of duty and trial, 
living as he sends us to live, in the open field of the world's 
sins and sorrows — its plausibilities and lies — its persecutions, 
animosities, and fears — its eager delights and bitter wants. 
.... How necessary it is for the soul to be aired in the 

outward exposures of the world Here alone in these 

common exposures of work and contacts of duty is true 
Christian purity itself successfully cultivated. Alas for the 
man who is obliged to be shut up to himself, as in the convent 
life, to face his own lusts, disorders and passions, and strangle 
them, in direct conflict, with nothing else to do or to occupy 
the soul." 

Bushnell: Ibid., pages 21 '1+, 275. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 185 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

SIXTH DAY 

How to Grow in Purity 

Gal. 5 24 ; II Cor. 10 3 - 6 ; Rom. 6 12 ' 13 , 8 10 , 12 *• 2 , 13 14 ; 
Col. 2 20 " 23 ; II Tim. 2 22 . 

Matt. 26 41 ; Acts 15 9 ; James 1 21 , 1 7 ' 8 ; John 8 36 ; 15 3 . 
I John 3 2 > 3 . 

"The way to purity is difficult of discovery only to those 
who practically do not care to find it." 

Bushnell: Ibid., page 273. 

"Can the soul's chastity, lost once, ever be recovered? . . . 

Let no such doubt be harbored God has undertaken 

to redeem the fall of sin and restore the soul to purity 

Browned by sin, mottled by the stains of a corrupted life, 

he has undertaken still to give it the whiteness of snow 

God can raise it to a purity that is higher even than the 
purity of an intact virtue. He can make us untemptably 
pure." Bushnell: Ibid., pages 271, 272. 

"Christ in other words, may be so completely put on that 
the whole consciousness may be of him, and all the motions 
of sins give way to the dominating efficacy of his harmonious 
and perfect mind .... the very current of thought, as it is 
propagated in the mind, may become so purified that, when 
the will does not interfere and the mind is allowed, for an 
hour, to run in its own way, without hindrance, one thing 
suggesting another as in revery, there may yet be no evil, 
wicked or foul suggestion thrust into it. Or in the state of 
sleep, where the will never interferes, but the thoughts rush 
on by a law of their own, the mixed causes of corruption may 
be so far cleared away, and the soul restored to such sim- 
plicity and pureness, that the dreams will be only dreams of 
love and beauty; peaceful and clear and happy, somewhat as 
we may imagine the waking thoughts of angels to be." 

Bushnell : Ibid., pages 267, 270. 



186 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XVI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (a) The First Test— Purity 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. What other religions beside Christianity require chas- 
tity of their followers ? 

2. The problem of the nude in art. (Titus 1 15 ; Matt. 

5 29, 30 ^ 

3. To what extent should a Christian be ignorant of evil? 
Is knowledge power? (II Cor. 6 17 ; Rom. 16 19 ; Eph. 5 11 " 13 .) 
(Cf. Speer, Marks of a Man. "Purity — A Plea for Igno- 
rance/') 

4. How subtle are the degrading influences of impurity 
on even the most surrendered lives? (John 7 53 — 8 lx ; Mark 
2 15 ' 17 ; John 17 15 ; I Cor. 15 33 ; II Thess. 3 6 .) 

5. Can a man ever reach a point where he will not be 
tempted to impurity? Where he will not yield to impurity? 

6. The human mind is like a camera film. After exposure 
to an impure thought or suggestion it is possible to do one of 
two things; either to delay and develop the plate which fixes 
the picture permanently or instantly to flood the plate with 
the light of Jesus — then the picture is forever destroyed. 
This latter is what is meant by putting on Jesus. Pray in- 
stantly for him to come and take possession of that particular, 
specific thought or picture; and mean it when you pray. Do 
not pray the prayer of the temporizer, "Lord, make me pure, 
but not now." 

7. For practical suggestions regarding the physical helps 
to a pure life see 

Scudder: Handbook for Young Men, Chapters VIII., IX. 

Sperry: Talks with Young Men, Chapters XV., XVI., XVII. 

Stall: What a Young Man Ought to Know, Hindrances and 
Helps. 

Hall: Reproduction and Sexual Hygiene, Chapter V., Hy- 
giene. 



STUDY XV 11 

The Fourfold Touchstone — (b) The Second Test — Honesty 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God .... with all thy mind." 

— 21 ark 12:30, 

"He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and 
he that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much. 
If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, 
who will commit to your trust the true riches?" — Luke 16: 10, 11. 

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free." —John 8:32. 

"Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, 
and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and 
maketh a lie." — Rev. 22:15. 

"For this is the will of God .... that no man transgress 
(m. r., overreach) and wrong his brother in the matter." 

— / Thess. 4:3, 6. 

"Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one 

with his neighbor .... let him that stole steal no more 

Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the 
Lord is." —Eph. 4:25, 28; 5:17. 

"Set your mind on the things that are above .... lie not one 
to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings." 

—Col 3:2, 9. 

"But the wisdom that is from above is ... . without variance, 
without hypocrisy." — James 3:17. 

"But if thou .... gloriest in God, and knowest his will .... 
thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?" 

—Rom. 2:17, 18, 21. 

"Fear them not, therefore: for there is nothing covered that 
shall not be revealed; and hid that shall not be known. 

—Matt. 10:26. 

IS THE STEP WHICH I HAD PLANXED TO TAKE AX ABSOLUTELY HON- 
EST oxe? If it is xot it caxxot be God's will for my life. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Trumbull. A Lie Never Justifiable. 
Speer. The Marks of a Man.— -"Truth." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 189 

Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

FIRST DAY 

What Do We Mean by Honesty ? 

Mark 14 61 ' 62 ; Titus 1 2 ; Rev. 19 11 " 16 . 

"Character is what a man is in the dark." 
If carried to its full meaning absolute honesty would also 
include victory over every sin, for a man ought to be honest 
with himself and his God as well as with his neighbors. Prac- 
tically we limit it to the relations of a man with other men 
and divide its transgression into two main divisions — lying 
and stealing. A common element in both is deception, and 
the question of honesty concerns itself with the motive — the 
voluntary act. 

(a) A lie is a story told or a part acted with the intention 
to deceive. 

(b) Stealing — "It will at once be seen that there are only 
three ways in which man can come into possession of any- 
thing; either by the free gift of another person, or by toil 
which receives something as legitimate return, or by theft, 
the taking that from another which belongs to him." 

Morgan: The Ten Commandments, page 90. 

An absolutely honest man from Jesus' standpoint may 
have secrets which he refuses to tell — dishonesty comes when 
he tells the facts other than they are or leads people to believe 
they are other than they are. 

"One of the most beautiful examples of Mr. Lincoln's 
rigid honesty occurred in connection with the settlement of 
his accounts with the post office department several years after- 
wards. It was after he had become a lawyer and had been a 
legislator. He had passed through a period of great poverty, 
had acquired his education in the law in the midst of many 
perplexities, inconveniences and hardships, and had met with 
temptations such as few men could resist, to make a temporary 



190 THE WILL OF GOD 

use of any money he might have in his hands. One day, seated 
in the law office of his partner, the agent of the post office 
department entered and enquired if Abraham Lincoln was 
within. Mr. Lincoln responded to his name, and was informed 
that the agent had called to collect a balance due to the depart- 
ment since the discontinuance of the New Salem office. A 
shade of perplexity passed over Mr. Lincoln's face which did 
not escape the notice of friends who were present. One of 
them said at once: 'Lincoln, if you are in want of money, let 
us help you.' He made no reply, but suddenly rose, and pulled 
out from a pile of books a little old trunk, and, returning to 
the table, asked the agent how much the amount of his debt 
was. The sum was named, and then Mr. Lincoln opened the 
trunk, pulled out a little package of coin wrapped in a cotton 
rag, and counted out the exact sum, amounting to something 
more than seventeen dollars. After the agent had left the 
room, he remarked quietly that he never used any man's money 
but his own. Although the sum had been in his hands during 
all these years, he had never regarded it as available even for 
any temporary purpose of his own." 

Holland: Life of Abraham Lincoln, pages 55, 56. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 191 



Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

SECOND DAY 

Subtle Forms of Dishonesty 

Gal. 2 12 ' 13 ; II Cor. 12 16 " 18 ; Rom. 2 8 ; Luke 3 12 ' 1 *; 
James 5 4 ; John 10 l . 

All bluffing in recitation. Copying essays or outlines. 
Cribbing words on the pages of text-books. Unauthorized 
helps. (The final test as to whether they are honorable or not 
— ask the instructor.) 

All gambling or betting. 

Refusing to consult a doctor when one knows something 
is wrong; unwillingness to face the whole truth. 

Purposely obscure handwriting when one does not know 
how to spell a word. 

All hypocrisy and all self -repression. "There are two 
forms of hypocrisy; one is pretending to be more than you 
are: the other, which is just as truly hypocrisy, is pretending 
to be less than you are" (John 12 42 ' 43 ; John 8 55 ). 

Taking credit for ideas or achievements which do not be- 
long to one. Not keeping engagements and promises. 

Letting someone else suffer for one's transgressions and 
crimes. Evasions of taxes, customs-duty, etc. (Rom. 13 7 ). 

Debts (Rom. 13 8 ). 

Sharp dealing in trade (Luke 16 10 ' 41 ; Prov. 20 14 ). 

Exaggeration or play of fancy on facts (II Cor. 4 2 , 12 6 ). 

Mixing money accounts. 

Sending mail under a cheaper class than is right. 

Telling the truth in such a way that it deceives others. 

Evasion of railway or trolley fare. 

Disclosing of personal confidences. 



192 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

THIRD DAY 

The Physical, Intellectual, Social and Spiritual Results of Dishonesty 
I Cor. 6 10 ; II Cor. IS 8 . 
Physical. Nervousness due to fear of discovery (John 

3 20,21. g 34) 

Intellectual. A deceiver soon comes to distrust himself 
and his mental judgments (John 8 43 " 45 ; 3 20 ' 21 ). "Just in so 
far as [distrust] prevails in any life, even in the most heroic, 
the man fails and his work will have to be done over again." 

Hughes: Manliness of Christ. 

Social. (Eph. 4 25 .) "You hold that a lie is sometimes 
justifiable. How can I know when you think it is ? The circum- 
stances may be such as to lead me to feel that at whatever cost 
or pain to you, you owe me the truth and you may think that 
they are such as to warrant your lying to me. This transfers 
the moral foundations of society from solid principle to the 
utterly precarious and unreliable basis of individual caprice." 
Speer : The Marks of a Man, page 28. 

Spiritual. (Rom. 2 8 ' 9 ; Rev. 21 27 .) "The Bible opens 
with a picture of the first pair in Paradise to whom God tells 
the simple truth and to whom the enemy of man tells a lie; 
and it shows the ruin of mankind wrought by that lie and the 
author of the lie punished because of its telling. The Bible 
closes with a picture of Paradise into which are gathered the 
lovers and doers of truth and from which is excluded every 
one that loveth and doeth a lie, while all liars are to have their 
part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which 
is the second death." 

Trumbull. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 193 



Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

FOURTH DAY 

The Honesty of Jesus 

[Isaiah 53 9 ]. 
John 1 17 . 

See Speer, Principles of Jesus. Chapters XXXIX V XL. 
— "Jesus and Veracity/' "Jesus and Falsehood." 



194 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XVII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

FIFTH DAY 

Is a Conflict Possible Between the Demands of Honesty and Those of 
Purity, Unselfishness or Love (Self-expression)? 

Gal. 4 16 . 

1. True honesty presupposes purity (John 8 44 ). 

2. True honesty presupposes mastery of self (II Thess. 
3 8 ; Eph. 4 28 ; Titus 3 8 . Cf. margin "profess honest occu- 
pations.") The selfish man lets others do his rightful work 
for him and is thus dishonest, getting something for nothing. 
The selfish man can never tell the exact truth because uncon- 
sciously his own prejudices color all he says (John 8 45 ). 

3. True honesty presupposes love (Eph. 4 15 ; James 
3 14_16 ). The question as to whether or not to deceive 
a sick man about his condition or the death of others may well 
be raised here. As a matter of fact the problem is not such an 
excruciating one as it is sometimes made out. If a man tells 
the truth selfishly } without love, just because of the innate 
passion of some men to be the first to impart news it may be 
such a shock as to kill the sick man. In reality the gossiper 
is not telling the truth. He is overstating. But the exact 
truth, if told in love, with sympathy, in such a loving way 
that the sick man lets us share part of the grief, is less 
dangerous than suspension due to deceit and the necessity of 
bearing one's burden alone. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 195 



Study XVXI. The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test — 

Honesty 

SIXTH DAY 

How to Grow in Honesty 

[Psalm 139] ; I Cor. 6 11 ; II Cor. 5 9 > 10 ; Heb. 4 13 . 
Heb. 12 1 ; John 8 81 » 32 » 36 , 18 37 . 

Realize that Jesus is always at your side although you 
do not see him. He knows everything we do (John 4 17 , 2 25 ). 
Dishonesty is always done in what men think is the dark. In 
reality this is not so (Ps. 139). God and Jesus and those 
of our friends who belong to the great crowd of witnesses see 
everything we do. When the latter were on earth — father, 
mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, son, daughter — we 
could conceal our dishonesty and sin from them. But now do 
not they see everything? When the temptation to dishonesty 
comes pray that Jesus and they may see what you are about 
to do. In other words, put on Jesus. 



196 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XVII, The Fourfold Touchstone, (b) The Second Test- 
Honesty 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Is strategy and deception in athletics right, e.g. curve- 
pitching, feint-attack, etc. ? 

2. What does Paul mean by II Cor. 6 8 ? Does this 
justify deception? 

3. Is the alternative of death, either of self or others, a 
sufficient justification for not telling the truth? 

4. Is it ever right to lie "that good may come" ? for 
country's sake ? in war ? in court ? in the sickroom ? Does good 
always come as a result of the lie of necessity or expediency? 

5. Was Martin Luther's position in regard to lying jus- 
tifiable^ — "What is the harm of a good, plump lie for the sake 
of the Christian church?" (See Henderson, A Short His- 
tory of Germany, Vol. I., page 372.) What was the historical 
result of this lie? 



STUDY XV.LLL 

The Fourfold Touchstone — (c) The Third Test — Unselfishness 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart." 

— Mark 12: 30. 

"So therefore whosoeyer he be of you that renounceth not all 
that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." — Luke 14:33. 

"If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever would save 
his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, 
the same shall save it." — Luke 9:23, 24. 

"For this is the will of God .... that ye study to be quiet, 
and to do your own business, and to work with your hands .... 
that ye may walk becomingly toward them that are without, and 
may have need of nothing." — I Thess. 4:3, 11, 12. 

"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and rail- 
ing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to 

another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other Wherefore be ye 

not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is." 

— Eph. 4:31, 32; 5:17. 

"Set your minds on the things that are above Put on 

therefore .... a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meek- 
ness, .longsuffering ; forbearing one another, and forgiving each 
other, if any man have a complaint against any." 

—Col 3:2, 12, 13. 

"But the wisdom that is from above is ... . peaceable, gentle, 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy." — James 3: 17. 

Is THE STEP WHICH I HAD PLANNED TO TAKE THE MOST UN- 
SELFISH one? If it is not it cannot be God's will for my life. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bushnell. The New Life. No. :£XL— "The Efficiency of the Pas- 
sive Virtues." 

Drummond. The Greatest Thing in the World. 

The difference between Unselfishness and Love. 

I. Jesus' teaching makes a clear distinction between 
unselfishness and love. 

Unselfishness is passive (Luke 14 33 , 9 23 ' 24 ) — self- 
mastery, self-renunciation, the effacement of self when self is 
tempted to express itself in what we may call the sins of the 
heart (as distinct from those of the body and mind), i.e. in 
Anger, Pride, Suspicion, Envy, etc. Bushnell has well charac- 
terized this as "Patience." 

Love, on the other hand, is always active. It is the ex- 
pression, the pouring forth of the mastered, controlled, re- 
nounced, effaced self in God-inspired and God-directed deeds 
of love. Self has been got out of the way and God works 
through the unchoked channel. Jesus always used love in 
this sense as implying action, not a mere emotion (Luke 10 
25 - 37 ; John 21 15 " 17 ; Matt. 25 31 " 46 ). Only in such a sense can 
a man love God with body, mind, heart and soul (Mark 12 30 ). 
Speer has well characterized this as "Service." 

II. Paul's analysis of love in I Cor. 13, on the contrary, 
embraces both of Jesus' conceptions of unselfishness and of 
love (of patience and of service, of self-effacement and of 
self-expression) under a more general term "Love." In the 
analysis there are seven self-effacing virtues (i.e. the traits 
of Jesus' "unselfishness") — Patience, Freedom from Envy, 
Humility, Courtesy, Waiving of One's Rights, Good Temper, 
Guilelessness ; and two self-expressing virtues (i.e. the traits 
of Jesus' "love") — Kindness, Championing of Righteous- 
ness and Truth. 

In our present study, "Unselfishness," we concern our- 
selves with the first seven; in the next study, "Love," with the 
last two. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 199 

Study XVm. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test- 
Unselfishness 

FIRST DAY 

What Do We Mean by Unselfishness ? 

I Cor. 8 9 ; Rom. 14 13 " 28 ; Matt. 5 38 - 42 ; John 3 29 ' 30 , 17 19 . 

"I only design to exhibit what many are so apt to overlook 
or forget, the sublime efficacy of those virtues which belong 
to the receiving, suffering, patient side of character. They are 
such as meekness, gentleness, forbearance, forgiveness, the 
endurance of wrong without anger and resentment, content- 
ment, quietness, peace, and unambitious love To bear 

evil and wrong, to forgive, to suffer no resentment under 
injury, to be gentle when nature burns with a fierce heat, and 
pride clamors for redress, to restrain envy, to bear defeat with 
a firm and peaceful mind, not to be vexed or fretted by cares, 
losses or petty injuries, to abide in contentment and serenity 
of spirit, when trouble and disappointment come — these are 
conquests, alas, how difficult to most of us ! Accordingly it 
will be seen that a true Christian man is distinguished from 
other men, not so much by his beneficent works as by his 
patience." 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages J/,00, J+01. 

If carried to its full meaning absolute unselfishness would 
also include victory over every sin. Unselfishness is mastery 
or effacement of self, and all impurity, dishonesty and self- 
repression are selfish. Practically we limit it to the traits of 
the heart. Unselfishness is to think of the results of your 
action on the other fellow, to curb yourself in so far as it 
might injure others. Wherever self asserts itself to the injury 
of others in impatience, envy, pride, discourtesy, greed, tem- 
per or suspicion, there is selfishness. 

An absolutely unselfish man according to Jesus' standpoint: 

Can be righteously impatient (Luke 19 45 ' 46 ). 

Can be righteously jealous (Luke 9 59 " 62 ). 



200 THE WILL OF GOD 

Can be righteously proud (Luke 10 17 " 20 ). 

Can disregard polite formalities (Luke 13 32 ; 7 44 " 47 ). 

Can be righteously self-assertive (John 8 12 ). 

Can be righteously angry (Matt. 23 13 " 36 ). 

Can be righteously suspicious (John 2 24 ' 25 ). 

But only when he has so completely surrendered his own will 
to God and so effaced self that he is absolutely sure that there 
is no selfish motive in his action and that God is working 
through him for the good of other men. 

For example: if I personally am insulted I have no right 
to be angry, I must bear the insult in patience; but if a poor 
defenceless woman is insulted I have a right to assert my 
righteous wrath to protect her. 

I have no right to be proud of my achievement but I 
have a right to be proud of what my friends do. If my work 
is delayed by others I have no right to be impatient, but if 
my friend's is delayed I have a right to be impatient. 

Unselfishness does not mean that a man becomes a 
nonentity. It means merely that for the future the goal or 
object of all his exertions is changed from self to others. 

An unselfish man lives up to Gen. Horace Porter's maxim : 
"Never underrate yourself in action, and never overrate your- 
self in your official report," 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 201 

Study XVIII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test- 
Unselfishness 

SECOND DAY 

Subtle Forms of Selfishness 

Rom. 12 9 " 21 ; Matt. 23 x - 12 (ci. also 13 - 39 ), 6 31 . 

How many of us live up daily to the following definitions 
of unselfishness? In what respects did Jesus fail to live up 
to them? 

"It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is 
one who never inflicts pain. He is mainly occupied in merely 
removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembar- 
rassed action of those about him, and he concurs with their 
movements rather than takes the initiative himself. He carefully 
avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those 
with whom he is cast — all clashing of opinion or collision of 
feeling, all restraint or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; 
his great concern being to make every one at his ease and 
at home. He has his eyes on all the company; he is tender 
towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant and merciful 
towards the absurd. He guards against unseasonable allu- 
sions, or topics which may irritate. He has no ear for slander 
or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who in- 
terfere with him and interprets everything for the best." 

Newman. 

"The forbearing use of power does not only form a 
touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys 
certain advantages over others is the test of a true gentle- 
man, The power which the strong have over the weak, the 
magistrate over the citizen, the employer over the employed, 
the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the 
confiding, even the clever over the silly, the forbearing or in- 
offensive use of all this power or authority, or a total absence 
of it when the case admits it will show the gentleman in a plain 
light. The gentleman does not needlessly or unnecessarily re- 
mind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against 



202 THE WILL OF GOD 

hini. He can not only forgive; he can forget; and he strives 
for that nobleness of soul and mildness of character which im- 
parts sufficient strength to let the past be the past. A true 
gentleman of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help 
humbling other s." 

Robert E. Lee,, Outlook, 22 December, 1906, page 968. 

Subtle forms of selfishness. 

Personal uncleanliness and slovenliness. 
Impatience — with physical pain or delay. 
Disappointment and sorrow brooded over. 
Envy. 
Pride. 

Unwillingness to let others do for you. 
Greed. 
Ambition. 

Discourtesy, especially to inferiors, e.g. servants. 
Conceit. 

Anger — bitterness — temper. 
Suspicion. 
Prejudice. 
Insincerity. 

Cruelty — abuse of children — cutting jests and nicknames. 
Unwillingness to forgive (Matt. 18 21 f). 
Boisterousness and roughness. 
Stubbornness. 
Gloominess — "grouch/' 
Anxiety and nervousness. 

Unwillingness to share another person's grief. 
Overeating and overdrinking. 

Overindulgence in pleasure (theatre, sport, etc.). 
Show and display. 

Lawlessness — not observing regulations (I Peter 2 13 " 15 ). 
Smoking in the presence of strangers, e.g. trolley car, 
grand stand, etc. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 203 



Study XVIII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test- 
Unselfishness 

THIRD DAY 

The Physical, Intellectual, Social and Spiritual Results of Selfishness 

Luke 9 23 ' 24 . 

Physical, A man can make himself sick and become a 
physical wreck by thinking of himself all the time. The 
best means of keeping well is to get the mind off of self. 

Intellectual (Matt. 13 22 , 25 14 - 30 )=unproductivity. 

Social (Matt. 23 38 ; Luke 15 28 ; John 13 30 )=loneli- 
ness. 

Spiritual (Matt. 18 3 ; Luke 9 24 ; John 12 25 )=loss of 
the life of God in the soul of man. 



204 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XVIII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test- 
Unselfishness 

FOURTH DAY 

The Unselfishness of Jesus 
Phil. 2 5 " 8 ; Rev. 1 9 . 

See a little pamphlet, "Paul's Analysis of Love as Il- 
lustrated in Christ's Life and Teaching" which can be ob- 
tained from the Bible Study Department, 124 East 28th Street, 
New York City, (Price, ten cents.) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 205 



Study XVin. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test— 
Unselfishness 

FIFTH DAY 

Is a Conflict Possible Between the Demands of Unselfishness and Those 
of Purity, Honesty or Love (Self-expression)? 

1. True unselfishness presupposes purity. Impurity is 
always gratification of self. Paul gives the selfish results of 
impurity in Rom. 1 24 " 32 (esp. 29 ' 30 f). 

2. True unselfishness presupposes honesty. Dishon- 
esty is always selfish — on the very face of it when a man 
is dishonest to save himself or to procure gain for himself. 
When a man lies or steals for another this is either because 
he is afraid of the other man and does not dare to face his 
anger by refusal to be dishonest; or because he is not willing 
to suffer in the other man's place, by taking the other man's 
sins on himself in his position of mediator. In either case it 
is a very obvious form of selfishness. 

3. True unselfishness presupposes love or self-expression. 
"By a little different process the Christian monks were turned 
to fiends of blood without being savages. Exercised day 
and night in a devotion that was aired by no outward 
social duties, waiting only on the dreams and visions of 
a cloistered religion, all the gentle humanities and social 
charities were absorbed or taken away. And then their very 
prayers would draw blood, and they would go out from the 
real presence itself to bless the knife or kindle the fire." 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 176, 177. 



206 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XVIII. The Fourfold Touchstone, (c) The Third Test- 
Unselfishness 

SIXTH DAY 

How to Grow in Unselfishness 

II Cor. 5 i: ; Phil. 2 5 " s , 4 s - 9 ; James 1 4 ; John 8 36 . 

Study in Jesus' life and teaching that particular trait 
in which you are weak (Heb. 4 12 ). Collect all the Scripture 
references and arrange them under heads, i.e. forms in which 
it manifests itself; what did Jesus teach about it? etc. Culti- 
vate the habit when the selfish impulse comes, of stopping 
short before acting and picturing Jesus in the same situation 
(Matt. 28 20 ; John 14 23 ). Then act the way the picture tells 
you. praying for his help. 

There is no sin, no matter how great or of how long 
standing it may be. which cannot be conquered by Jesus' 
help in this way ; if one means business. 



SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. To what extent is the doctrine of non-resistance to be 
carried? Is Tolstoi's theory right? 

2. Is war ever justifiable? the use of force in discipline? 

3. Has a man a right to defend himself when attacked 
by a robber? Is he fighting for himself alone or for the 
community ? 



STUDY XIX 

The Fourfold Touchstone — (d) The Fourth Test — Love 

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God .... with all thy soul. Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." —Mark 12:30,81. 

"This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as 
I have loved you." — John 15:12. 

"Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and ye did 
not give me to eat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink. I was a 
stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick 

and in prison and ye visited me not Inasmuch as ye did it not 

unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me." — Matt. 25: 41-48, 45. 

"For this is the will of God .... concerning love of the breth- 
ren ye have no need that one write unto you." — I Thess. 4:3,9. 

"And walk in love, even as Christ also loved you, and gave 

himself Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what 

the will of the Lord is." — Eph. 5: 2, 17. 

"Set your mind on the things that are above .... and above 
all these things put on love." — Col. 3:2,14. 

"But the wisdom that is from above is ... . full of ... . good 
fruits." — James 3:17. 

IS THE STEP WHICH I HAD PLANNED TO TAKE THE FULLEST POS- 
SIBLE EXPRESSION OF MY LOVE, i.e. OF MY SELF IN SERVICE OF OTHERS? 
IF IT IS NOT IT CANNOT BE God's WILL FOR MY LIFE. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bushnell The New Life. IX.— "Capacity of Religion Extir- 
pated by Disuse." 

Drummond. The Greatest Thing in the World. 
Jordan. The Call of the Twentieth Century. 
Speer. The Marks of a Man. "Service." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 209 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

FIRST DAY 

What Do We Mean by Love or Self-expression ? 

Matt. 25 31 " 46 ; Luke 10 25 " 37 ; Heb. 13 16 ; I Peter 4 8 - 10 . 
John 13 34 , 21 15 " 17 ; I John 3 16 > 17 . 

"In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is 
depicted for us in the imagery of one seated upon a throne 
and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test of a man then 
is not, 'How have I believed?' but 'How have I loved?' 
The test of religion, the final test of religion, is not religious- 
ness but love. I say the final test of religion at that great 
day is not religiousness but love; not what I have done, not 
what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I 
have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of com- 
mission in that awful indictment are not even referred to. By 
what we have not done, by sins of omission, we are judged. 
It could not be otherwise. For the withholding of love is the 
negation of the spirit of Christ, the proof that we never 
knew him, that for us he lived in vain. It means that he 
suggested nothing in all our thoughts, that he inspired noth- 
ing in all our lives, that we were not once near enough to 
him to be seized with the spell of his compassion for the world. 
It means that 

" ' I lived for myself, I thought for myself, 
For myself and none beside — 
Just as if Jesus had never lived, 
As if he had never died.' 

"It is the Son of man before whom the nations of the 
world shall be gathered. It is in the presence of humanity 
that we shall be charged. And the spectacle itself, the mere 
sight of it will silently judge each one. Those will be there 
whom we have met and helped; or there the unpitied multi- 
tude whom we neglected or despised. No other .witness need 
be summoned. No other charge than lovelessness shall be pre- 



210 THE WILL OF GOD 

f erred. Be not deceived. The words which all of us shall one 
day hear sound not of theology but of life, not of churches and 
saints, but of the hungry and the poor, not of creeds and doc- 
trines, but of shelter and clothing, not of Bibles and prayer 
books, but of cups of cold water in the name of Christ. Thank 
God, the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world's 
need. Live to help that on." 

Drummoxd: The Greatest Thing in the World, pages 
61-84. 

If carried to its full meaning absolute love or self-expres- 
sion would also include victory over every sin (Rom. 13 8 " 10 ). 
Love is full self-expression and an impure, dishonest or sel- 
fish man never expresses himself fully. Practically we limit 
love to the service of mankind. It is the active pouring out 
of self in contrast to unselfishness which is the hidden, pas- 
sive mastery of self. "Have you ever noticed how much of 
Jesus' life was spent in doing kind things — in merely doing 
kind things ?" 

The fullest expression of love according to Jesus' stan- 
dard (1) Does not mean working beyond one's powers all the 
time, taking up every task that comes along (Jesus took va- 
cations) ; but it does mean doing those things which no one but 
you can do ; e.g. if you receive a gift you are the only one who 
can express thanks for it. (2) Does not mean simply senti- 
mental, pliable agreeableness. True love often acts with a 
sternness that hurts. (Love is not only kind — love rejoiceth 
not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth in the truth.) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 211 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

SECOND DAY 

Subtle Forms of Repression of One's Best Self 

Luke 7 44 " 47 , 17 11 " 18 . 

Laziness. 

Cowardice. 

Not expressing thanks for gifts or favors (especially 
tuition scholarship in college). 

Never telling your parents or friends — those in the 
intimate circle — how much you think of them (i.e. tell your 
mother that you love her and appreciate what she has de- 
prived herself of for your sake). 

Neglect of prayer and church attendance. 

Neglect of duties as citizen — votings protest, etc. 

Refusal to help (not necessarily to give money to) beg- 
gars and tramps because they are probably fakes. 

"It is easy to become suspicious of everything that calls 
itself charity, to harden the heart because we can point to 
endless cases where we have been imposed on Benevo- 
lence may have often been abused, but worse than that is 
callous indifference to the calls on benevolence. A man who 
boasts of never having been taken in is advertising his own 
hardness of heart. Charity organization is dearly bought at 
the expense of the extinction of charity itself." 

Hugh Black: "The Paralysis of Criticism," Outlook, 17 
March, 1906, page 607. 

Avoidance of marriage and children. 

Neglect of correspondence with family or friends. 



212 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

THIRD DAY 

The Physical, Intellectual, Social and Spiritual Results of Self- repression 

Matt. 25 (entire chapter). 

Physical. [Isaiah 40 31 ] ; John 4 31 " 34 ; I Peter 4 xl ("the 
strength which God supplieth"). A man misses the tenfold 
strength which is his birthright. 

Intellectual. Matt. 25 26 " 28 . "The same paradox is ob- 
served .... in intellectual achievements The life 

that withheld itself was checked and dwarfed. The life that 
yielded itself was enriched and confirmed." 

Peabody: Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
page 203. 

"I have said that in one respect my mind has changed 

during the last twenty or thirty years I have tried 

lately to read Shakespeare and found it so intolerably dull 
that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste 

for pictures and music My mind seems to have become 

a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of a large 
collection of facts, but why this should have caused the 
atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher 

tastes depend, I cannot conceive If I had to live my 

life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry 
and listen to some music at least once every week; for per- 
haps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have 
been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a 
loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intel- 
lect, and more probably to the moral character by enfeebling 
the emotional part of our nature." 

Francis Darwin: Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 
pages 81, 82. 

(Cf. also James' Psychology, Briefer Course, pages 

147, 148.) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 213 

Social. Matt. 25 28 ' 30 . Separation from others. 
Spiritual. Luke 16 19_31 . A man misses the greatest joy 
in the world — the joy of service. Ill John 4. 

"I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we 
are? How much the world needs it. How easily it is done. 
How instantaneously it acts. How infallibly it is remembered. 
How superabundantly it pays itself back." 

Drummond: The Greatest Thing in the World, page 28. 



2U THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

FOURTH DAY 

The Love or Self-expression of Jesus 
John 21 25 . 

Speer. Principles of Jesus. Chapters XXXI., XXXII. 
— "Jesus and Love/' "Jesus and Work." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 2U 

Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

FIFTH DAY 

Is a Conflict Possible Between the Demands of Love (i. e. Service or 
Self-expression) and Those of Purity, Honesty and Unselfishness? 

1. True love presupposes purity. 

John 7 53 — 8 " (contrast the attitude of the pure Jesus 
and the impure Pharisees toward the woman in need of help). 
Matt. 7 18 (end of verse), 12 34 ; I Peter 1 22 . 

It is not true that men living in sin are sympathetic 
toward those who are worse off, and that pure and honest 
people are cold and unsympathetic. The one thing that gives 
a man great love and desire to help others is to have won his 
own struggle himself. Men living in sin are cruel. Many 
people who pretend to be pure are cruel, but it can be taken 
as an almost invariable rule that when a man is bitter and 
uncharitable against those who have fallen in sin that he 
is thereby striving to cover a sin of the same sort. (Rom. 
8 1 ; Matt. 7 1 .) 

2. True love presupposes honesty. 
Rom. 12 9 ; I John 3 18 . 

Discuss here the question of one man helping another 
to be dishonest in examination "out of love." 

"Out of love V What is love ? A flabby, pliable agree- 
ableness because you are a coward and are afraid that the 
other man will not like you if you ob j ect ; or is it an affection- 
ate concern for the future of your friend so faithful and 
true that it cuts you to the heart to think of such a damning 
trait as deception becoming rooted in him? Perhaps your 
kindly, loving refusal explained fully with great gentleness 
afterwards may be the turning point of his life. (2 Tim. 
2 24_26 .) At the least he will love and admire you for it. 

If you help him on in his career of deception and he 
later becomes a bank def aulter, who is in part responsible ? 



216 THE WILL OF GOD 

"By a change of divisions in the summer term, I came to 
sit next to Charlie Fielding, and was glad of the chance to 
become more intimate with him. But before long I began to 
think my privilege a doubtful one. For Charlie, although 
gifted with a keen mind and an extraordinary power of con- 
centration, was loath to apply them to preparation for class 
work: instead, he would be constantly whispering to me, 
"What's this?" or "How do you do that?" — endeavoring in 
this way to keep far enough in advance of the reciter to avoid 
being flunked when called upon. To this practice I have always 
most strongly objected, not selfishly, but on grounds of self-re- 
spect. In school and in college there are those who seem to 
consider it an honor to have the more prominent men lean upon 
them in this way for support. But never, never, was popularity 
acquired by such sorry subserviency. Outside of class the great 
man notices not his friend in time of need, or if so, only to 
fleer him for a 'grind' or a 'greaser/ Much as I admired 
Charlie Fielding (who was by this time grown to something of 
a figure in the school world), I would not endure this un- 
equal arrangement. So one day after recitation, I put the 
matter to him plainly. Perhaps his fault had been one more of 
thoughtlessness than of deliberate intent; for he immediately 
apologized most handsomely, and we parted with mutual 
respect From this day forward our friendship pro- 
gressed so rapidly, that shortly before the close of the term 
(when his present room-mate and mine would both graduate), 
we arranged to room together for the next year." 

Struly: My Three Years at Andover, pages 59-61. 

3. True love presupposes unselfishness. I Cor. 13 3 . 

"We see in this subject how it is that many persons are 

so abundantly active in religion with so little effect 

Thus a man may be very active in warnings, exhortations, 
public prayers, plans of beneficence, contributions of time 
and money, and it may seem, when you look upon him, that 
he is going to produce immense effects by his life. But 
suppose him to be very much of a stranger to the patient 
virtues of -Christ — railing at adversaries, blowing blasts of 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 217 

scorn upon those whom he wishes to reform in their practices, 
impetuous, wilful, irritable, hot — how much good is that man 
going to do by all his activity? What can he do but irritate 
and vex, and, as far as he is concerned, render the very name 
of religion, or possibly of Christ himself, odious ? ,J 

Bushnell: The New Life. 



Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

SIXTH DAY 

How to Attain to Love or Self-expression 

I Peter 1 22 ; John 8 36 , 15 12 ; I John (entire book). 

The surest means is by the daily study of the life and ex- 
ample of Jesus. We are to be finally judged not so much by 
the sins we have committed as by our sins of omission. Read 
each day in the Gospels until a kind act of Jesus suggests a 
similar one that you can and should do. Then shut the Bible 
up at once and go out and do it, before you read further. 



218 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XIX. The Fourfold Touchstone, (d) The Fourth Test— Love 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. How can a man know whether or not he is doing enough 
active Christian work? 

2. Is it ever right to work beyond one's physical 
powers ? to wreck one's health deliberately in service of others ? 
e.g. Keith Falconer. Father Damien and lepers. 

Yes, if you are the only one who can do the work. It is 
just as right to sacrifice one's life in this unpoetic but as 
truly heroic way as to die at the head of a charge of troops 
to save the nation. 

3. Can love be commanded? 

4. Does love require lovableness in its object? 



D. THE ISSUES OF FACING THE PROBLEM 
OF DOING GOD'S WILL 

Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience. 

Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge. 

Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience (continued), (b) Pro- 
tection from Harm and Provision for all Needs. 

Study XXIII. The Issues of Obedience (continued), (c) As- 
surance as to Duty and Power to Achieve Results. 

Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience (continued), (d) Con- 
stant Companionship. 

Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience (concluded), (e) Eter- 
nal Life, 



STUDY XX 

The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

"And that servant, who knew his lord's will, and made not 
ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many 
stripes." —Luke 12:47. 

"But what think ye? A man had two sons; and he came to the 
first, and said, Son, go work today in the vineyard. And he 
answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented himself, 
' and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he 
answered, and said, I go, sir; and went not. Which of the two did 
the will of his father? They say, The first. Jesus saith unto them, 
Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and harlots go into the 
kingdom of God before you." —Matt. 21:28-31. 

"And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said unto him, 

One thing thou lackest But his countenance fell at the saying, 

and he went away sorrowful." — Mark 10:21,22. 

"Destruction and misery are in their ways; and the way of 
peace have they not known." — Rom. 3:16,17. 

"Every one that falleth on that stone shall be broken to pieces; 
but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust." 

—Luke 20:18. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Btuhnell. The New Life. I.— "Every Man's Life a Plan of God." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 



Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

FIRST DAY 

What is Disobedience? 

Eph. 4 17 " 24 ; Titus 3 3 ; Acts 7 51 . 

Disobedience is a deliberate, voluntary transgression of 
purity, honesty, unselfishness or love; the refusal (not neces- 
sarily the failure) to obey one's conviction of the right. 

"Things all serve their uses and never break out of their 
place. They have no power to do it. Not so with us. We 
are able as free beings to refuse the place and duties God 
appoints; which if we do we then sink into something lower 
and less worthy of us. That highest and best condition for 
which God designed us is no more possible. We are fallen 
out of it, and it cannot be wholly recovered." 

Bushnell: The New Life, page H. 

"In the eternal counsels of his will when he arranged the 
destiny of every star .... the Creator had a thought for 

you and me But we all had the terrible power to 

evade this thought, and shape our lives from another thought, 
from another will if we chose. The bud could only become 
a flower, and the star revolve in the orbit God had fixed. 
But it was man's prerogative to choose his path, his duty 
to choose it in God. But the divine right to choose at all has 
always seemed more to him than his duty to choose in God, 
so for the most part he has taken his life from God and cut 
out his career from himself/' 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, page 805. 



224, THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

SECOND DAY 

Honest Ignorance, Honest Openmindedness, Defiant Refusal to Obey, 
Indecision and Wilful Ignorance 

Honest ignorance is not disobedience — Jesus freely for- 
gives those who sin through ignorance (Luke 23 34 ). Cf. the 
case of Paul (Acts 26 9 ' 19 ). 

Honest openmindedness and refusal to act until convinced 
is not disobedience. Jesus never forces a man against his 
frank, although perhaps mistaken, convictions; he invites 
honest, searching investigation of his claims. (John 1 3 % 

20 24 - 29 .) 

Defiant refusal to obey is disobedience but it is the most 
hopeful form (Matt. 21 28 - 29 ). A defiant rebel against God 
often makes the most devoted subject if he can be brought to 
see his error. 

Indecision, apathy, or disobedience-become-a-habit, is the 
subtlest and most dangerous form of disobedience (Matt. 

21 30 ' 31 ). While good and often necessary in intellectual 
matters it is never right in a question of conscience. It is 
a form of disobedience which blinds and deafens (John 8 43 , 
12 36 " 43 ). Jesus' energies were often directed against this 
most alarming form of sleeping sickness of the soul. 

Wilful ignorance (2 Peter 3 5 ' 16 ), the refusal to learn, 
is the atrophy of the soul. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 225 

Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

THIRD DAY 

The Testimony of Psychology to the Results of Disobedience, Especially 
in the Form of Indecision 

James 2 19 ' 20 . 

"No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may 
possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if 
one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity 
to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the 
better. With mere good intentions hell is proverbially paved. 
And this is an obvious consequence of the principles we have 
laid down. A 'character,' as J. S. Mill says, 'is a completely 
fashioned will' ; and a will, in the sense in which he means it, 
is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and prompt and 
definite way upon all the principal emergencies of life. A 
tendency to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in 
proportion to the uninterrupted frequency with which the 
actions actually occur and the brain 'grows' to their use. 
When a resolve or a fine glow of feeling is allowed to evapor- 
ate without bearing practical fruit it is worse than a chance 
lost; it works so as positively to hinder future resolutions and 
emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. There is 
no more contemptible type of character than that of the nerve- 
less sentimentalist and dreamer who spends his life in a 
weltering sea of sensibility and emotion but who never does 
a manly, concrete deed. Rousseau, inflaming all the mothers 
of France by his eloquence to follow nature and nurse their 
babies themselves, while he sends his own children to the 
foundling hospital, is the classical example of what I mean. 
But every one of us in his measure, whenever, after glowing 
for an abstractly formulated good, he practically ignores 
some actual case among the squalid 'other particulars' of 
which that same good lurks disguised, treads straight on 
Rousseau's path. All goods are disguised by the vulgarity of 
their concomitants in this work-a-day world, but woe to him 



226 THE WILL OF GOD 

who can only recognise them in their pure and abstract form. 
The habit of excessive novel-reading and theatre-going will 
produce true monsters in this line. The weeping of the 
Russian lady over the fictitious personages in the play while 
her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside is the 
sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glowing scale. 
Even the habit of excessive indulgence in music for those 
who are neither performers themselves nor musically gifted 
enough to take it in a purely intellectual way has probably a 
relaxing effect upon the character. One becomes filled with 
emotions which habitually pass without prompting to any 
deed and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The 
remedy would be never to suffer one's self to have an emotion 
at a concert, without expressing it afterward in some active 
way. Let the expression be the least thing in the world — 
speaking genially to one's grandmother^ or giving up one's 
seat in a horse-car if nothing more heroic offers — but let it 
not fail to take place.' ' 

James; Psychology, Briefer Course, pages 14.7,148. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 227 

Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

FOURTH DAY 

The Certainty of Failure of a Disobedient Life 

Rom. 3 17 ; Col.V; Mark 10 22 , 12 x '*, 14 21 ; Matt. 6 23 , 

18 7 , 19 22 , 23 37 > 38 ; Luke 3 9 , 6 49 , 12 20 > 21 ' 4 Vl4 33 " 35 , 19 2T ; 
A^ts IS 46 ; Heb. 2 2 . 

"Seek the kingdom of God first. I promise you but a 
miserable existence if you seek it second/' 

Drummond. 

"Do I hear thy soul confessing, with a suppressed sob 
within thee, that, up to this time, thou hast never sought God's 
chosen plan at all? Hast thou, even to this hour and during 
so many years, been following a way and a plan of thine own, 
regardless hitherto of all God's purposes in thee? Well, if 
it be so what hast thou gotten? How does thy plan work? 
Does it bring thee peace, content, dignity of aim and feeling, 
purity, rest; or does it plunge thee into mires of disturb- 
ance, scorch thee in flames of passion, worry thee with 
cares, burden thee with bitter reflections, cross thee, disap- 
point, sadden, sour thee ? And what are thy prospects ? What 
is the issue to come? After thou hast worked out this hard 
plan of thine own, will it come to a good end? Hast thou 
courage now to go on and work it through?" 

Bushnell: The New Life, page 2Jf. 

"Whole years, possibly many years of that great and 
blessed biography which God designed for you, occupied by 
a frivolous and foolish invention of your own, substituted for 
the good counsel of God's infinite wisdom and love." 

Bushnell: Ibid., page 25. 

"Life stripped to its essentials offers but two alternatives 
to the man of action. He may work for himself alone, build- 
ing his little selfish walls across the advancing path of 
civilization and making them stumbling blocks in the way of 



228 THE WILL OF GOD 

progress. Then however successful he may be, ultimately 
the stern mills of the gods will grind him and his structures 
to dust and he and his work will vanish from the earth. Or 
having the eyes that see, he may place his effort parallel with 
those eternal lines of force that mark the purposes of God 
and then what he builds will endure." 

H. K. Smith. 

"All men living without God are adventurers out upon 
God's world, in neglect of him, to choose their own course. 
Hence the sorrowful sad-looking host they make. Oh, that I 
could show them whence their bitterness, their dryness, their 
unutterable sorrows come. Oh, that I could silence, for one 
hour, the noisy tumult of their works, and get them to look in 
upon that better, higher life of fruitfulness and blessing to 
which their God has appointed them. ,, 

Bushnell: Ibid., page 26. 

"All these centuries the human animal has fought with 
the human soul. And step by step the soul has registered 
her victories. She has won them only by feeling for the 
law and finding it — uncovering, bringing into light, the firm 
rocks beneath her feet. And on these rocks she rears her 
landmarks — marriage, the family, the State, the Church. 
Neglect them, and you sink into the quagmire from which 
the soul of the race has been for generations struggling to 
save you. Dispute them ! overthrow them, — yes, if you can ! 
You have about as much chance with them as you have with 
the other facts and laws amid which you live — physical, 
or chemical, or biological." 

Ancrum to David Grieve. (Quoted Powell: Christian 
Science, page 129.) 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 229 



Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

FIFTH DAY 

No Disobedience so Great that it Cannot be Rectified before God by 
a Single Act of the Human Will 

Luke 28 39 " 43 ; John 6 37 , 7 37 ' 53 — 8 ll . 

The "unpardonable sin" can be committed only by the 
man who won't be saved. It is unpardonable, not because 
God is not ready to pardon but simply and solely because 
the man won't let himself be pardoned. There are two parts 
to salvation, God's part and man's part. God is always ready, 
but he cannot act without man's permission, man's free will. 

"For the Spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man 
like a mighty sea, ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the 
walls that shut him out from his own." 

Macdonald: Robert Falconer, page 



230 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

SIXTH DAY 

Why not, then, Sow One's Wild Oats? Although Completely Recti- 
fied Spiritually, all Disobedience must be Atoned for Physically, 
Mentally and Socially, and When Man has once Disobeyed, only 
"the Next Best Plan" is Thereafter Possible. He can never be 
what he Might Have Been, Had he not Disobeyed, yet God 
has an Honorable Part though not so Great a One for him in 
His Plan Still 

Gal. 6 7 ' 8 '; Rom. 6 21 " 23 , ll 23 . 

God forgives and rectifies the spiritual results of sin in 
the individual if he repents, and that is the main thing; but 
physically, intellectually and socially a man must reap what 
he has sown. In these three realms a man can never be again 
what he might have been ; for even if he restores his body, for 
example, to its state at the time he fell, we must remember that 
this same body might have developed a tenfold greater strength 
in the interval had the means necessary for its restoration been 
devoted to its further development from the first with no 
lapse. 

"And yet, as that was the best thing possible for us in 
the reach of God's original counsel, so there is a place de- 
signed for us now which is the next best possible. God calls 
us now to the best thing left, and will do so until all good 
possibility is narrowed down and spent." 

Bushnell : The New Life, pages 1J/., 15. 

"And what shall I say to the older man, who is further on 
in his course and is still without God in the world? The 
beginning of wisdom, my friend, you have still to learn. You 
have really done nothing as yet that you were sent into 
the world to do. All your best opportunities, too, are gone 
or going by. The best end, the next best, and the next are 
gone and nothing but the dregs of opportunity are left. And 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 231 

still Christ calls even you. There is a place still left for 
you; not the best and brightest but an humble and good one. 
To this you are called. For this you are apprehended of 
Christ Jesus still." 

Bushnell: Ibid., pages 25, 26. 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XX. The Issues of Rejection and Disobedience 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. In how far are Jesus' figures of punishment for 
disobedience to be taken literally? e.g. "Beaten with many 
stripes/' "Cast forth into outer darkness/' 

2. In most of the parables is the penalty of exclusion in 
outer darkness pronounced upon those guilty of sins of omis- 
sion or of commission? 



STUDY XXI 

The Issues of Obedience — A. Knowledge 

"Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not 
mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he 
shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I 
speak from myself." —John 7:16, 17. 

"I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judg- 
ment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of 
him that sent me." — John 5:30. 

"And when they bring you before the synagogues, and the 
rulers, and the authorities, be not anxious how or what ye shall 
answer, or what ye shall say: for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in 
that very hour what ye ought to say." — Luke 12:11,12. 

"But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will 
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your 
remembrance all that I said unto you." — John 14:26. 

"For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your ad- 
rersaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay."— Luke 21:15. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Robertson. Sermons, Second Series. No. VII. — "Obedience the 
Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." 

Bushnell. The New Life. IX. — "Capacity of Religion Extirpated 
by Disuse." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 235 



Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

FIRST DAY 

The Mental Power and Insight of Jesus 

Col. 2 2 ' 3 ; Matt. 7 28 ' 29 , 22 46 ; Luke 2 47 ; John 2 25 , 

w 14, 15 

See Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, 
Chapter II., pages 56-64*. 

What weapons of the scholar did Jesus use? 

Cite instances of his deep insight and ability to get at 
the essential point on which the issue was to be determined. 

Was Jesus a critic? Was his mind scientific? 

Contrast the mind of Jesus with that of Paul. 

On what occasions did Jesus make use of playfulness as 
a weapon of reasoning? 

"Here is intellectual insight matching spiritual authority. 
This is no recluse or peasant or passive saint, but an intel- 
lectual as well as moral leader, who may be rejected indeed, 
but who cannot be despised." 

Peabody: Ibid., pages 68, 6Jf. 

"One of the strongest pieces of objective evidence in fa- 
vor of Christianity is not sufficiently enforced by apologists. 
Indeed, I am not aware that I have ever seen it mentioned. 
It is the absence from the biography of Christ of any doc- 
trines which the subsequent growth of human knowledge — 
whether in natural science, ethics, political economy, or else- 
where — has had to discount/ ' 

Romanes: Thoughts on Religion, page 167, 



THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

SECOND DAY 

The Infinite Capacity and Possibilities of the Human Mind 

[Ps. 139 14 .] 

"The human mind is the brightest display of the power 
and skill of the infinite mind with which we are acquainted. 
It is created and placed in this world for a higher state of 
existence. Here its faculties begin to unfold and those 
mighty energies which are to bear it forward to unending 

ages, begin to discover themselves [Some imagine that 

it is] dangerous to task the mind too often lest her stores 

be exhausted or her faculties become weakened But 

you need have no such fears; you may call upon your mind 
today for its highest efforts and stretch it to the utmost in 
your power and you have done yourself a kindness. The mind 
will be all the better for it. Tomorrow you may do it again 
and each time it will answer more readily to your calls/ ' 

Todd: The Student's Manual, pages 13,86,87. 

"If we take, for example, the faculty of memory, how 
very obvious it is that as we pass eternally on we shall have 
more and more to remember and finally shall have gathered 
more into the great storehouse of the soul than is now con- 
tained in all the libraries of the world. And there is not one 
of our faculties that has not, in its volume, a similar power 
of expansion/' 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 310, 311. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 237 

Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

THIRD DAY 

Is Genius Chance, Inheritance or Character ? 
Col. 2 2 > 3 . 

"Genius is nine parts character; the prize is to him who 
dares, not merely to him who can; the supreme desideratum is 
self- fulfilment." 

R. L. Hartt: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LXXXIII., 1899, 
page 717. 

Is genius chance? The principle of evolution teaches 
us plainly that it never can be. It may appear suddenly and 
apparently unaccountably in an unexpected place, but this 
must be either inheritance appearing after several generations 
or the result of characteristics acquired by the man himself in 
his environment. 

Is genius inheritance? Often. But inherited what? 
Inherited character. Some one else up the line has wrought 
and labored (John 4 38 ) and hammered out a character, and 
the gifted man is the one who has entered into this labor by 
inheritance, even if he has not labored himself. I am con- 
fident that we shall some day be able to show how the gifted 
man derived the genius from a blend of the patient characters 
hammered out by his ancestors, with his own. 

Is genius then character? In the final analysis, always — 
either one's own acquisition or inherited. A man with a long 
line of ancestors of character from whom to inherit naturally 
starts higher up in the scale at the beginning, but it is possible 
for any man to make marvelous intellectual advances by his 
own advance in character if he will only obey. We can at 
least hammer out, each one of us, in his own life one of the 
strands which some descendant will unite with others and thus 
make the blend for genius in his life. What form the genius 
will take, we do not of course know at the start. All men 
cannot be musical geniuses. But every man has in him or can 



238 THE WILL OF GOD 

acquire the capacity to reveal to the world some mighty 
eternal truth of science or humanity. Every human life was 
intended to be some thought of God incarnate. The question 
is, Will we *et him express it? 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 239 

Study XXl. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

FOURTH DAY 

The Relation of Obedience to Intuition and Mental Growth 

[Dan. 12 10 ] ; I Cor. 1 5 ' 7 ; Col. 1 9 ; Luke 2 47 ' 49 , 21 35 ; 
Acts 6 10 ; James 1 5 " 8 . 

I Peter 4 "; John S 34 , 5 30 , 7 17 ; I John 2 20 ' 27 ; 
II Peter 1 21 . 

"It follows in the same manner that there is no genuine 
character, no proper education which does not include re- 
ligion. Much indeed of what is called education is only a 
power of deformity, a stimulus of overgrowth in the lower 
functions of the spirit, as a creature of intelligence which 
overlooks and leaves to wither, causes to wither, all the metro- 
politan powers of a great mind and character. The first 
light of the mind is God, the only genuine heat is religion, 
imaginative insight is kindled only by the fervors of holy 
truth, all noblest breadth and volume are infolded in the 
regal amplitude of God's eternity and kingdom, all grandest 
energy and force in the impulsions of duty and the inspira- 
tions of faith. All training, separated from these, operates 
even a shortening of faculty as truly as an increase. It is 
a kind of gymnastic for the arm that paralyzes the spine. 
It diminishes the quantity of the subject where all sovereign 
quantity begins and increases it only in some lower point, 
where it ends ; as if building the trunk of a lighthouse staunch 
and tall were enough without preparing any light and revolv- 
ing clock for the top. Hence it is that many scholars, most 
bent down upon their tasks and digging most intently into 
the supposed excellence, turn out, after all, to be so miserably 
diminished in all that constitutes power. Hence also that 
men of taste are so often attenuated by their refinements and 
dwarfed by the overgrown accuracy and polish of their 
attainments. No man is ever educated in due form, save 
as being a man ; that is, a creature related to God, and having 



240 THE WILL OF GOD 

all his highest summits of capacity unfolded by the great 
thoughts, and greater sentiments and nobler inspirations of 
religion." 

Bushnell: The New Life, page 181. 

"He [Jesus] never taught that the cultivation of the 
understanding would do all but exactly the reverse. And so 
taught his apostles. St. Paul taught 'The world by wisdom 
knew not God/ His Master said, not that clear intellect will 
give you a right life, but that a right heart and a pure life 
will clarify the intellect. Not, become a man of letters and 
learning and you will attain spiritual freedom; but do rightly 
and you will judge justly; obey and you will know." 

Robertson: Sermons, Second Series, No. VII. "Obedi- 
ence the Organ of Spiritual Knowledge." 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 241 



Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

FIFTH DAY 

The Marvelous Growth in Knowledge Possible to any Man Who 
Obeys God's Will 

John 8 31 " 34 . 

Why should not obedience free the mind for larger 
things? Does sin ever help to make a man more of a genius, 
more brilliant intellectually? If so let us know what particu- 
lar form is helpful and all cultivate it assiduously. Let us 
at once establish professorships of the particular form of sin 
which leads to genius in our schools and universities. Does 
impurity develop memory or imagination or taste and 
delicacy of perception? Does dishonesty improve the power 
of impartial judgment, or does selfishness help breadth of 
vision? Does repression of one's sympathies — one's best self 
— help power of observation or insight? Wherein does great- 
ness in literature and life lie if not in just those traits which 
are the issues of purity of mind, honesty of judgment, un- 
selfishness of heart and pouring forth of soul? 



242 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XXI. The Issues of Obedience, (a) Knowledge 

SIXTH DAY 

"If any Man Willeth to do His Will, he Shall Know" 

John 7 17 , 16 13 . 

If God is perfect knowledge (Pro v. 2 6 ) and if sin clogs 
the channel of our intercourse with him is it unreasonable to 
suppose that if a man could clear his mind of the sensual, 
remove the screens which deception, prejudice, anger, and 
selfishness rear between him and truth, and awaken the torpor 
of the soul; is it unreasonable to suppose that under such con- 
ditions revelations of higher truth — which are the marks of 
true genius — might come to him as we are told that they came 
to the prophets, to Jesus and the Apostles of old? At 
least is it unreasonable to hold that they are more liable 
to come to such a man than if his receiving instrument is 
clogged and choked? Such a way of arriving at the truth 
does not minimize the intellectual. It requires hard work of 
the mind and of the will as well. 

"Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strong- 
est manner the great truth which is embodied in the Chris- 
tian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit 
down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up 
every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to 
whatever abysses nature leads or you shall learn nothing." 

Huxley: Life and Letters, Vol. I, page 235. 

"Masaccio can by no means be taken as a fair instance 
of the painters of his age. Gifted with exceptional powers 
he overleaped the difficulties of his art, and arrived intuitively 
at results whereof as yet no scientific certainty had been se- 
cured. His contemporaries applied humbler talents to severe 
study and wrought out by patient industry those principles 
which Masaccio had divined." 

Symonds: Renaissance in Italy. III. — The Fine Arts, 
page 231. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 243 

"But his [Drummond's] discoveries were always derived 
from intuition rather than from reason, and although we can 
only speak from the lay point of view, we may suggest that 
evolutionists may in time, by laborious work, reach the point 
which Drummond attained without being well able to say how 
he got there." 

Lennox: Practical Life Work of Henry Drummond, 
page 172, 



SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Is true vision from God ever possible without an act 
of the human will and earnest work to realize it? 



study xxn 

The issues of Obedience (continued) — B. Protection from Harm and 
Provision for All Needs 

"And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that 
kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But 
I warn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed 
hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are 
not five sparrows sold for two pence? and not one of them is for- 
gotten in the sight of God. But the very hairs of your head are 
all numbered. Fear not: ye are of more value than many sparrows." 

—Luke 12:4-7. 

"But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all 
these things shall be added unto you." — Matt. 6:83. 

"Jesus answered him, Thou wouldest have no power against me 
except it were given thee from above." — John 19:11. 

"Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and 
killed them, think ye that they were offenders above all the men 
that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye 
shall all likewise perish." — Luke 13: 4,5. 

"For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, 
and do this or that." — James 4 : 15. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Harnack. What is Christianity? pages 72-76. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 247 

Study XXIL The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

FIRST DAY 

The Indifference of Jesus to Earthly Privations, Opposition and Physi- 
cal Danger 

Mark 4 35 " 41 ; Matt. 6 19 " 34 ; Luke 4 29 ' 30 , 13 31 " 33 ; John 
7 6 " 9 , 11 8 ' 9 , 12 33 , IS 1 , n\ 

See Speer, The Man Christ Jesus, pages 53-57, 62-67, 
94-99. 

What was the attitude of Jesus toward opposition? mis- 
representation ? popular opinion ? 

Did he disregard the formal conditions of success? 
On what supposition only can this be explained? 
Did he ever alter plans or purposes? 
What was his attitude toward his own death? 



248 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

SECOND DAY 

No Life That Stands for any Real Principle can Expect to Escape 
Privation, Opposition and often Physical Peril in This Life 

Phil. 1 29 ; Matt. 5 "» 12 , 10 22 , 24 9 ; Acts 20 19 ' 22 " 24 . 
Heb. 2 10 , 10 32 " 39 , 13 12 ; I Peter S 17 , 4 14 ; Rev. 7 13 " 17 ; 
John 7 7 . 

No true man can expect to pass through the world without 
encountering privation, opposition and often physical peril 
for the sake of principle. Jesus told his disciples, "Woe 
unto you when all men shall speak well of you/' and the 
apostolic teaching reiterated the same idea when it asserted 
that as many as live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer per- 
secution. Reproduction and growth are only possible in the 
physical world through sacrifice and suffering. The same 
principle holds true in the mental, social and spiritual realms. 
We have, of course, no right to deliberately court privation, 
opposition and physical peril when no essential principle is at 
stake (Acts 21 17 " 26 ). We are to remember, too, that these 
things are a part of the world order and come to Christians 
and non-Christians alike, and that they are only unendurable 
when one has to endure them alone without God's help. As 
a part of his plan, these things are a benediction and a joy 
(Matt, 5 "• l2 ), 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 249 



Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

THIRD DAY 

What are Privation, Suffering and Death ? 

John 13—17. 

See Charles Cuthbert Hall, Does God Send Trouble? 

See Lyman Abbott, The Other Room. 

See Robert E. Speer, Marks of a Man, page 34. 

Read through these chapters of John and collect all the 
phrases Jesus uses for his approaching death, and then study 
Jesus' idea of death. 

"On either hand [of life] we behold a birth, of which, as 
of the moon, we see but half. We are outside the one, wait- 
ing for a life from the unknown; we are inside the other, 
watching the departure of a spirit from the womb of the 
world into the unknown. To the region whither he goes, the 
man enters newly born. We forget that it is a birth, and 
call it a death. The body he leaves behind is but the placenta 
by which he drew his nourishment from his mother Earth. 
And as the childbed is watched on earth with anxious expec- 
tancy, so the couch of the dying, as we call them, may be 
surrounded by the birth- watchers of the other world, waiting 
like anxious servants to open the door to which this world 
is but the wind-blown porch." 

Macdonald : Robert Falconer, page 



250 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

FOURTH DAY 

God's Promise of Provision for Our Needs and of Protection from 
Harm does not Exclude Privation, Suffering or Death if His Plan 
for the World Requires such Sacrifice on Our Part. But He 
Promises Us that if We Entrust Our Lives Unreservedly to Him, 
such Things Will Only Come to Us as a Part of His Plan and 
that We Shall be Amply Provided for and Protected in the Path 
of Obedience in all Other Instances 

I Thess. 3 3 ; I Cor. 4 9 ; II Cor. 4 11 ; Rom. 8 28 , 14 8 ; 

Phil. 1 12 > 13 . 

II Tim. 3 10 " 12 , 4 6 ' 17 ' 18 ; Luke 10 19 ; Acts 18 9 > 10 , 22 17 > 18 . 

, 29 



Heb. 11 32 - 36 , 13 5 > 6 ; I Peter 4 19 ; John 10 



God's dispensations of provision for needs and protec- 
tion are not to all men. He does not force even these upon 
men unless they wish to have them (Luke 13 1_5 ). It is not 
true that all things work together for good for all men. Paul 
never said that. He said that to them that love God all things 
work together for good, even to them that are called accord- 
ing to his purpose. If a man prefers to live his own life 
alone, apart from God, God grants him the same opportunities 
from which to make a happy life as he grants his own fol- 
lowers (Matt. 5 45 ). If, however, man allows God to direct 
his life unreservedly there is another element which enters in. 
"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow 

me My Father, who hath given them unto me, is 

greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the 

Father's hand Thou wouldst have no power against 

me, except it were given thee from above/ ' 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 251 

Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

FIFTH DAY 

The Relation of Obedience to Escape from Peril and Provision for 
Our Needs 

II Cor. 1 8- 11 ; Mark 10 28 " 31 ; Luke IS 1 ' 9 ; Acts 22 17 " 21 . 
II Tim. 4 18 . 

When a man surrenders his life unconditionally to God 
he, for the first time, makes it possible for God to provide for 
his needs or save him from possible peril, if such be God's 
will, inasmuch as provision and protection not only pre- 
suppose the act of the giver but also acceptance by the re- 
ceiver. Since God forces no man against his will, before the 
dedication of lives to him there is no assurance that the indi- 
vidual will let God act in a given case — the channel of com- 
munication being now open, now closed. After the dedication 
the truly surrendered man has made a contract with God to be 
always pure, always honest, always unselfish, always loving in 
deeds of self-expression; he may fail now and then, but he 
corrects his mistake as soon as he realizes it and presses on, so 
the channel is always open. Through compelling convictions 
of purity, honesty, unselfishness or service, which his vow 
requires him to translate at once into action, he can now be 
led into fields of provision and out of paths of danger. Jesus 
teaches plainly several truths regarding this great subject in 
Luke IS 1_9 . (1) Accidents and calamities are not visitations 
of divine justice to punish sinners. (2) When a building falls 
it falls alike upon the morally good and the morally bad who 
are under it. (3) But if a man has put himself in God's 
hands, God makes provision that he shall not be in that build- 
ing unless the plan of God required his sacrifice there (John 
19 xl ). 

What I mean is this. If a building is about to fall as a 
sure consequence of the great invariable laws of nature which 
God created and which he knows, he can detain me from going 
under it as I might naturally have done through some appeal 



%m . THE WILL OF GOD 

to my purity, honesty, unselfishness or love, which coming as 
an interruption halts or detains me before I reach the place. 
If God can always count on what I will do at any moment, 
why cannot he lead me into any fields of provision or out of 
any path of danger at any time, perhaps even unconsciously 
on my part? Is not the variableness of the human will the 
only thing that stands in the way of a rational system of pro- 
vision and protection, once granted that God can communi- 
cate with men? 

I like to continue in fancy the story of the Good Samari- 
tan. I like to think that after the robbers had finished with 
their victim and left him by the roadside they went on a few 
miles and lay in wait for other travelers. The priest and the 
Levite came by, and the warning from God that would have 
saved them from the possibility of peril in the shape of the 
appeal to their unselfishness and love to help the injured man 
and take him back to the inn was unheeded. They went on 
and were robbed. But the Samaritan turned aside at the 
appeal to his unselfishness — the compelling conviction that 
he ought to stop and help. Thus he was saved from the trap 
laid for him though he never knew that danger lurked ahead. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 253 



Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

SIXTH DAY 

" Fear Not, Ye are of More Value than Many Sparrows" 
Mark 6 8 ' 9 . 

Why, then, should we ever be worried or afraid in the 
path of obedience? May it not be, nay, must it not be that a 
path is prepared for each one of us through life where every 
necessary provision is made for our needs, where harm abso- 
lutely cannot enter if we will but walk in it — a charmed life, 
if you will — as long as God wishes it to last ? 

"When I went to Europe thirty years ago for a two 
years' absence and left you a little fellow of three months 
with your mother, I never felt any anxiety about myself or my 
family, for it seemed to me a part of God's plan for me and 
mine. And I knew He would care for us. So I feel now 
about you and yours." 

A Father's Steamer Letter, August 27, 9 07. 

"But why fear at all? If we keep spending ourselves 
for the general good, fear has no place. God will take care 
not to lose his partner." 

Patton: New Basis of Civilization. 



254 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXII. The Issues of Obedience, (b) Protection and Provision 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. What is the fundamental difference between Jesus' 
doctrine of protection and fatalism? 

2. Which recognizes a human side to the question — an 
act of will? 

3. If you like Paul were to be put in prison unjustly, in 
the prime of life, as he was in Caesarea, would you doubt God's 
fairness and goodness? 



study xxm 

The Issues of Obedience — C. Assurance as to One's Duty and Power 
to Achieve Results 

"He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also ; 
and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the 
Father." —John 14 : 12. 

"And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if 
we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us." 

— I John 5:14* 

"So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in 
my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out 
your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who work- 
eth in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure." 

—Phil. 2:12,13. 

"God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, 
and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according 
to his own will." — Heb. 2: 4. 

"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what- 
soever ye will, and it shall be done unto you." — John 15: 7, 

"For as through the one man's disobedience the many were 
made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the 
many be made righteous." — Bom. 5:19. 

"And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: 
not that we are sufficient of ourselves: .... but our sufficiency is 
from God." —II Cor. 3:4.5. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Moody. Secret Power. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 25T 

Study XXIII. The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

FIRST DAY 

The Unfaltering Assurance and Mighty Achievements of Jesus 

Gal. 1 3 ' 4 ; Matt. 26 53 ; Luke 4 3 % 9 B1 , 20 2 . 
John 4 32 ' 34 , 5 17 ' 20 > 36 , 8 14 . 

See Speer, The Man Christ Jesus, pages 28-40. 

With what social disadvantages did Jesus enter upon his 
work ? 

What social conventions did he dare to disregard? 

In what way were his plans revolutionary? 

Did he finish his work? 

What social and political changes in history can be 
traced to his influence? 



25$ THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXIIL The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

SECOND DAY 

Assurance and Sure Conviction as to Duty, the Prerequisites for all 
Great Achievements, Possible to Those Who Obey 

I Thess. I 4 ' 5 ; I Cor. 1 *; Col. 4 12 ; Eph. 3 12 ; Matt. 
18 14 ; Acts 4 13 . 

The one essential for all successful work is conviction 
that a man is in the right place. Just as surely as one doubts or 
distrusts his mission his work fails. This assurance was the 
secret of Paul's mighty achievements (I Cor. 1 *; Gal. 1 15 ' 16 ). 
It is the key to Jesus' life (Luke 19 10 ; Matt. 18 14 ). Both 
were lives with a definite purpose. Only when a man knows 
that he is in his work called of God can he successfully over- 
come the difficulties and face the disappointments that always 
accompany a great task. If a man is God's represen- 
tative and knows that he is obeying orders he dares go 
ahead since the responsibility for the result lies not with him 
but with God. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 259 



Study XXIII. The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

THIRD DAY 

The Infinite Possibilities of Achievement of Which Man is Capable 
Rev. 14 13 . 

"Only a few years ago he [man] lay in his cradle, a 

barely breathing principle of life He conquers now 

the sea and its storms. He climbs the heavens and searches 
out the mysteries of the stars. He harnesses the lightning. He 
bids the rocks dissolve and summons the secret atoms to give 
up their names and laws. He subdues the face of the world 
and compels the forces of the waters and the fires to be his 
servants. He makes laws, hurls empires down upon empires 
in the fields of war, speaks words that cannot die, sings to 
distant realms and peoples across vast ages of time : in a word, 
he executes all that is included in history, showing his tre- 
mendous energy in almost everything that stirs the silence and 
changes the conditions of the world. Everything is trans- 
formed by him even up to the stars. Not all the winds and 
storms and earthquakes and seas and seasons of the world 
have done so much to revolutionize the world as he, the power 
of an endless life, has done since the day he came forth upon 
it and received, as he is most truly declared to have done, 

dominion over it And yet we have in the power thus 

developed, nothing more than a mere hint or initial sign of 
what is to be the real stature of his personality in the process 
of his everlasting development." 

Bushnell: The New Life, pages 309, 810. 



260 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXIII. The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

FOURTH DAY 

"The Strength Which God Supplieth" 

[Isaiah 40 28 " 31 ]; II Cor. 5 17 ; Eph. 1 17 ' 18 ' 19 ; Phil. 
4 13 > 19 7~ 

I Tim. 1 12 ; II Tim. 1 7 ; Matt. 4 4 ; Luke 1 49 . 
Acts 1 8 , 26 22 ; I Peter 4 1X ; John 4 32 " 34 . 

Spend this day's study on a careful consideration of all 
the Scripture passages given above. How does this strength 
make itself felt and what is its source? To what extent may 
it be called upon? 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 261 

Study XXIII, The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

FIFTH DAY 

The Relation of Obedience to Assurance and Achievement 

[Lev. 26 3 ' 8 ] ; II Cor. 12 9 > 10 , 13 8 ; Rom. 5 19 ; Col. 1 29 ; 
Mark 9 ^ 10 29 ' 30 , ll 23 ; Matt. 21 2lT22 ~; Luke 6 47 " 49 . ~ 
John 15 5 ; I John 4 17 > 18 , 5 4 . 

"The world has yet to see what God can accomplish 
through a man who will give himself up wholly to His will." 

"He that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and 
stronger/' 

In an actual physical contest the bully with big muscles 
and a knowledge that he is in the wrong is no match for the 
man with average muscles and truth on his side. 

"They therefore can who will what ought to be." 

Leonardo da Vinci. 

"The ordinary man who wills to have a mind freed from 
the shackles of impure imagery, an eye that looks at things 
squarely and brooks deception neither of self nor of others, a 
hand that will not spare itself in work, and a heart that will 
express without reserve its honest convictions and genuine 
affections, will often even in this earthly life outstrip the 
brilliant genius, who though starting far ahead in the race 
because of inherited gifts, is shackled and ultimately over- 
thrown by impurity, dishonesty, selfishness or atrophy of 
heart. And who can doubt the ultimate result when we enter 
upon real living when these days of preparations and layings 
of foundations are over." 

A Life with a Purpose, pages 21^, 23. 



262 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XXIII. The Issues of Obedience, (c) Assurance and Power 

SIXTH DAY 

"He (i. e. any Man) That Believeth in Me Greater Works 

than These Shall HeDo" 

John 14 12 . 

What are the limits of the work I might accomplish in 
this brief life if I could lay hold on the strength which God 
supplieth? Is it possible that God has a plan already pre- 
pared, conditional only upon my acceptance of it, to use me, 
weak as I am, for some mighty task here or to prepare me for 
some mightier service in the next world? 

"We may not be able today to think Plato's thought, 
create Shakespeare's Hamlet or live with the moral sublimity 
of Lincoln, but give us eternity and infinite opportunity and 
there is no limit to our possible growth in these directions." 

Griggs : Moral Education, page 23. 



SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. What is finished work? 

2. Is it to be judged by quality or quantity? 

3. Has a young man who dies at the age of seventeen 
finished his work? 

4. Is any work finished, no matter how complete it may 
be, that is not pure, honest, unselfish or the fullest expres- 
sion of one's self? 



STUDY XXIV 

The Issues of Obedience — D. Constant Companionship 

"For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, 
and sister, and mother." — Mark 3:35. 

"If a man love me, he will keep my word; and my Father will 
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." 

—John 14:23. 

"But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be- 
come children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who 
were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man, but of God," —John 1 : 12, 13. 

"The friendship of Jehovah is with them that fear him; and he 
will shew them his covenant." — Psalm 25:14. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Abbott f Lyman. The Great Companion. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 265 

Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

FIRST DAY 

The Constant Fellowship of Jesus with God 
John 5 20 , 8 16 ' 29 ' 54 > 5 % 10 30 « 38 , 16 32 . 

See Speer, Principles of Jesus, Chapter I. — "Jesus and 
the Father." 

What names does Jesus use for God? 

Was his fellowship with God real? On what occasions 
did he address him as a person? Was he ever without the 
sense of God's presence? 



■266 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXTV» The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

SECOND DAY 

Man is a Social Being Who can only Exist in Society 
Mark 15 34 ; Luke 23 46 . 

"The next thing that the ideal man needs is society. Man 
is not made to be alone. He needs friendships. Without so- 
ciety the ideal man would be a monster, a contradiction. You 
must give him friendship. Now whom will you give him?" 

Drummoxd: The Ideal Life, page 23^» 

"No statements about God can satisfy the soul in this its 
quest after God. Nothing can take the place of the personal 
finding of him ; personal communion with him ; personal friend- 
ship with him Nothing can satisfy the quest after 

God except God himself. We must come to know him as 
Abraham knew him, as David knew him. as Isaiah knew him, 
as Paul knew him, or our quest will never be satisfied. 'O that 
I knew where I might find him V is the cry of humanity, and 
only God himself can satisfy it." 

Abbott: The Great Companion, pages 2J/. 3 26. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 267 

Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

THIRD DAY 

Loneliness or Isolation Impossible to the Surrendered Life even though 
it be Deserted by all Earthly Friends 

II Cor. 4 9 ' 16 " 18 ; Rom. 8 38 ' 39 ; II Tim. 4 16 > 17 ; Mark 6 48 . 
John 14 18 ' 21 ' 23 , 15 15 , 16 32 . 

The reason why true Christians have always been able to 
accomplish so much under the most difficult conditions and in 
the most lonely spots is that they are never in reality alone* 
An isolated Christian is an impossibility even in solitary con- 
finement. He has always the companionship of another per- 
sonality — God. 



FOURTH DAY 

"For Whosoever Shall do the Will of My Father Who is in Heaven, 
He is My Brother, and Sister, and Mother " 

Matt. 12 50 . 

"Yes, my brother, and my sister, and my mother 

Some young man here is suffering fierce temptation. Today 
he feels strong but tomorrow his Sabbath resolutions will 
desert him. What will his companions say if he does not 
j oin them ? He cannot face them if he is to play the Christian. 
Companions ! What are all the companions in the world to 
this? What are all the friendships, the truest and the best, 
to the dear and sacred brotherhood of Christ? 'He that 
doeth the will of my Father the same is my brother/ ,J 

Drummond: The Ideal Life, pages 235, 236. 



268 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

FIFTH DAY 

The Relation of Obedience to Fellowship with God 
Rev. 3 20 ; John 12 26 ; I John 1 3 > 6 ' \ 2 \ 

Purity. Matt. 5 8 . 
Honesty. Rev. 22 15 . 
Unselfishness. Heb. 12 14 . 
Love. Matt. 25 41 ' 46 ; I John 4 12 . 

"Study yesterday in order to learn wisdom for tomorrow, 
but when the lesson has been learned study it no longer. We 
ought to learn wisdom from our mistakes ; we ought to acquire 
virtues from our sins. Why this act of folly which we lament ? 
Spend no time in repining; but spend all the time that is 
necessary in order to learn its lesson. Was it due to vanity? 
or greed? or appetite? or self-conceit? or a weak and way- 
ward will? Find out. Then be on guard against the same 
enemy to your honor when he attacks you at a new point and 
under new circumstances. We all make mistakes; we all com- 
mit transgressions. But we ought not to repeat the same 
mistakes — that is to blunder ; we ought not to commit the same 
transgressions — that is doubly dishonorable. Forget the 
things which are behind, and stretch forward to the things 

which are before No man ought to allow the memory 

of the past to prevent his peace and joy in present fellowship 
with God." 

Abbott: The Great Companion, pages 137-139. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 



Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

SIXTH DAY 

"Lo, I am with You Alway M 

Matt. 18 20 , 28 20 ; IJohn 1 3 . 

What a motive to the highest and noblest in life this 
promise is ! We are never alone. Is this too great a thought 
for me to realize — Jesus by my side as I write, in the lecture 
room with me tomorrow, on the train as I journey alone? 

"This is the value of those quiet hours which the night 
sometimes affords us. Insomnia has lost its dread since I 
learned the meaning of the Psalmist's declaration: 'My mouth 
shall praise thee with joyful lips when I remember thee upon 
my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches/ The 
man who spends his sleepless hours in such remembrance makes 
them joyful hours. He does not lie tossing to and fro, won- 
dering whether he shall ever fall asleep again, anxious lest he 
shall prove unfitted for the morrow's duties, trying to put 
himself to sleep by endless combinations of numbers or by 
repeating senseless rhymes: he lies restfully and reads in the 
book of his remembrance the record of his Father's love, or 
looks calmly at the morrow's duties or the morrow's perils 
because he looks at them through his Father's eyes, or com- 
munes with his own heart and in its uninterpretable experi- 
ences hears the voice of his Father, or simply is still and 
knows that God is God." 

Abbott: The Great Companion, pages 157, 158. 



270 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXIV. The Issues of Obedience, (d) Constant Companionship 

SEVENTH DAY— REVIEW 

1. Does God reveal himself to mankind today in the same 
way as before the incarnation? 

2. What is the meaning of John 20 29 ? 

3. What passages in Paul's letters attest a living fellow- 
ship with God? 



STUDY XXV 

The Issues of Obedience — E. Eternal Life 

"And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that 
doeth the will of God abideth forever." — / John 2:17. 

"Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
who is in heaven." — Matt. 7:21. 

"And this is the will of him that sent me, that of all that which 
he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the 
last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone that 
beholdeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have eternal life; 
and I will raise him up at the last day." — John 6 : 89, 40. 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my word, he 
shall never see death." — John 8:51. 

"He that soweth unto the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal 
life." — Gal. 6:8. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Bushnell. The New Life. XVI.— "The Power of an Endless 
Life." 

Abbott, Lyman. The Other Room. 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 273 



Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

FIRST DAY 

The Power of an Endless Life 

Rom. 6 23 ;Heb. 2 14 ' 15 , 7 1G . 

"The difference between the mortal and immortal life is 
not made by death. The immortal life is the life which pain, 
sickness, and death cannot terminate. It is the life of faith, 
of hope, of love. Such life is immortal life, because mortality 
cannot touch it. The body is always dying; it is in an ever- 
perpetual process of decay; but the spirit of faith, hope, and 
love is in no process of decay; it is not mortal. It is eternal 

because it stands in no time-relation Christ was as 

immortal when hanging apparently helpless on the cross as 
when he rose from the tomb/' 

Abbott: The Other Room, pages 99, 100. 



214, THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

SECOND DAY 

Eternal Life may Begin Here and Now on This Earth through the 
Act of Obedience 

Rom. 6 4 > 8 ' "• 13 ; I Tim. 6 12 ' 19 ; II Tim. 1 10 . 



Luke 10 20 , 17 21 ; Heb. 11 5 , 12 *, 13 14 ; Rev. 21 3 . 
John 3 14 ' 15 ^" 36 , 4 14 , 5 24 " 40 , 6 54 " 57 ' 63 , 8 51 , 10 27 ' 28 , 
11 25 > 26 , 17 3 ; I John 2 25 , 3 14 , 5 "» 12 > 20 . 

"Not all men wish for immortality. They wish to live 
forever, but living forever is not immortality. Immortality 
is living the life that cannot die, because it is the life of the 
spirit. If we wish to believe in such a life as a life hereafter, 
we must believe in it as the life worth living here; if we wish 
to possess it hereafter, we must wish to possess it here. Do 
we? .... If I would have a right to the tree of life, if I 
would have a right to know that there is a tree of life, I must 
seek this immortal life here, and seek it from the God who is 
here, and seek it through the channel that he opens for us. 
.... If we are to pluck the fruit from the tree of life, 
we must have a right to it. If we would have a rational 
hope in life hereafter, we must have the immortal life here. 
To have faith in immortality we must practice immortality." 
Abbott; Ibid,, pages 101-107 {passim). 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 275 

Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

THIRD DAY 

The Evidences of Eternal Life Which We may Enjoy through 
Obedience Here and Now (Rom. 14: 17). (a) The Freedom of 
Righteousness 

Gal. 2 4 ' 5 1 ' 13 ; I Cor. 10 29 ; II Cor. 3 17 ; Rom. 8 2 ' » 
14 17 . 

James 1 25 , 2 12 ; I Peter 2 15 > 16 ; John 8 31 > 32 > 36 ; I John 

4 17, 18 # 

Study carefully the Scripture passages given for this 
day's study, grouping your results under the heads of — 

(a) The exact meaning of Freedom. 

(b) How is it to be obtained? 

(c) The results of its possession on the individual. 



276 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

FOURTH DAY 

The Evidences of Eternal Life Which We may Enjoy through 
Obedience Here and Now (Rom. 14: 17). (b) Joy 

Rom. 14 17 ; Matt. 6 22 ; Acts 2 46 ' 47 . 

Heb. 1 9 ; I Peter 1 8 ; John 15 xl , 16 20 " 24 , 17 13 . 

I John 1 4 . 

(Follow directions under Third Day substituting "Joy" 
for "Freedom.") 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 277 

Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

FIFTH DAY 

The Evidences of Eternal Life Which We may Enjoy through 
Obedience Here and Now (Rom. 14: 17). (c) Peace 

I Cor. 7 15 b; Rom. 5 \ 8 6 , 14 17 ; Luke 2 14 , 19 41 » 42 . 
Acts 3 19 , 9 31 b; John l^ 7 , 16 33 . 

(Follow directions under Third Day, substituting "Peace" 
for "Freedom/') 



278 THE WILL OF GOD 

Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

SIXTH DAY 

"He That Doeth the Will of God Abideth Forever" 
I John 2 17 . 

Can we even faintly grasp the full meaning of these 
words, "He that doeth the will of God abideth forever"? 
Abideth how? In infinite knowledge, with infinite provision 
made for all wants, with infinite power to achieve and op- 
portunity for development, in everlasting companionship, in 
perfect freedom, perfect joy, perfect peace. 

No man, who through the deliberate act of surrender of 
the human will to absolute standards of purity, honesty, un- 
selfishness and love, has once felt the coursing of these im- 
mortal powers in his spirit can ever after find any experi- 
ence of this new life tame or commonplace. 

Why should we hesitate to make the act of enlistment or 
surrender complete? Just the other side of complete sur- 
render is God and the power of an endless life. 

"Laid on thine altar, O my Lord divine, 

Accept this gift today for Jesus' sake: 
I have no jewels to adorn thy shrine, 

No far-famed sacrifice to make; 
But here within my trembling hand I bring 

This will of mine — a thing that seemeth small. 
But thou alone, O Lord, canst understand 

How when I yield thee this, I yield mine all. 

"Hidden within, thy searching gaze can see 

Struggles of passion, visions of delight, 
All that I have or am or fain would be — 

Deep loves, fond hopes and longings infinite. 
It has been wet with tears and hushed with sighs, 

Crushed in my grasp till beauty it hath none; 
Now from thy footstool where it vanquished lies, 

The prayer ascendeth, 'May thy will be done.' 



A MAN'S LIFEWORK 279 

"Take it, O Father, ere my courage fail, 

And merge it so in thine own will, that e'en 
If in some desperate hour my cries prevail 

And thou give back my gift it may have been 
So changed, so purified, so fair have grown, 

So one with thee, so filled with grace divine, 
I may not feel or know it as my own, 

But, gaining back my will, may find it thine J' 



280 THE WILL OF GOD 



Study XXV. The Issues of Obedience, (e) Eternal Life 

SEVENTH DAY— CONCLUSION 

"Now the God of peace, who brought again from the 
dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an 
eternal covenant, even our Lord Jesus, make you perfect in 
every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is 
well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom 
be the glory, forever and ever. Amen." 

—Hebrews 13:20,21. 



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